There’s a lot to be said about the Olympic legacy but the paucity of critical thinking says a lot about the standard of political debate in Britain. Cameron wants to say its a sign that Britain’s time has come, but misses the fact that our success is down to a long-term commitment to funding sports after decades of mediocrity despite well-meaning volunteers apleanty. How’s that for a metaphor for Plan B?

School sports have often failed due to being the first item dropped when something else needs time and because of poor resourcing. This includes the pointless priority given to sports that fail most people, such as football and rugby. Ironically Indian Dancing might be just the sort of thing that involves those failed by conventional school sports.

What is needed is for politicians to stop meddling in our schools and for proper resources to be given to the best educationalists and coaches to create a successful system for all of our youngsters.

It seems absurd to make compulsory a thing which a child is either naturally gifted at, or not.

What, like maths?

“It seems absurd to make compulsory a thing which a child is either naturally gifted at, or not. ”

But this doesn’t apply to PE (or, more accurately, the large number of skills used in that subject). When people practice sports, they get better at them. When people get lots of exercise, they become fitter and thus can run faster and throw further. It’s science!

“The drive to make children more physically active is a good one. The drive to focus specifically on competitive sport is wrong. ”

You haven’t actually said that Boris et al. are focusing specifically on competitive sport. But there are big advantages to competitive sports, mainly that they motivate participants to try harder.

“What we are laying in place has more in common with the principles of Hitler Youth. Everyone must do it! Even if you don’t like it! If you’re slow or bad at it, tough luck, this is a nation only for the physically strong, now! ”

This isn’t so much overegging the pudding as taking a photo of the pudding, drawing a Hitler moustache on it and screaming “IT’S THE DEVIL!!!!”

Also, it’s a bad day when Godwin’s law is invoked in the actual article.

“Two hours a day leaves precious little room or energy for actual – you know – education. ”

I agree that two hours a day takes a lot of time away from studies. Could we get a source on the energy thing though?

To be honest, the vibe I’m getting off this article is “I hated PE so PE must be evil.” I hated PE too, and I’m very much aware that it’s pretty much the one subject where kids are routinely bullied for being sub-par. That’s just kids, though, it’s not like the schools make PE an officially acceptable reason for bullying.

10 hours a week is too much, unless we’re going to increase school hours to fit, and even then you’d want to make sure that the effects wouldn’t be detrimental. But this article seems fuelled purely by resentment, which is especially obvious when you make your childish Nazi comparisons and say ridiculous things like “For the sake of the success of the top 1% of the top 1%…”

Because, you know, 99% of people get no benefit from exercise whatsoever.

@ 1 Cherub

“What is needed is for politicians to stop meddling in our schools and for proper resources to be given to the best educationalists and coaches to create a successful system for all of our youngsters.”

Who should be responsible for meddling in our schools, then?

There really are more important national educational priorities for primary schools than introducing additional classes for PE and competitive team sports:

“The National Curriculum test results also revealed that in spite of an improvement in English and maths, more than a third of pupils still left primary school without a proper grasp of the basics in reading, writing and maths.” [August 2010]
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba881948-9f3f-11df-8732-00144feabdc0.html

This simply seems to prove the right-wing accusation that there are elements of the Left who hate the idea of competition.

“Two hours a day leaves precious little room or energy for actual – you know – education. ”

I agree that two hours a day takes a lot of time away from studies. Could we get a source on the energy thing though?

In my capacity as resident over-privileged swine, who wrung his education from the bleeding lips of the poor, we used to have a minimum of two hours a day for sport or cultural endeavour (more in the summer). In the winter there was a break from 2-4 and then lessons from 4-6. In summer we had lessons 2-4 and then were free after that. On Tuesdays and Thursdays (I think) there was no afternoon school at all. Our work certainly didn’t seem to suffer all that much.

The more I think about it, the more I regret that I’m not going to be able to send my kids to the same sort of school. It’s not the results you pay for, so much as the resources and opportunities.

While intellectual failure remains a private matter

unless you have a blog

[being a failure in the classroom is every bit as public as being a failure in the gym.]

“A great legacy for the Olympics would be that we instate a mandatory two hours of “whatever you are best at” for each child.”

I don’t even know where to start with that.

I completely agree with this. I went to a grammar school which had an absurdly competitive attitude to sport, with an entire afternoon wasted on it every week. It was enough to put me off all competitive sports, in any form whatsoever, for life.

As for Chaise Guevara’s comments, it is demonstrably not true that
‘competitive sports … motivate participants to try harder’. Rather, competitive sports motivate many to drop out of sports altogether.

@ 7 Tim

I’m aware that current thinking is that regular exercise helps academic achievement by boosting concentration (read: stopping kids from running around like little hellions when they should be working). Obviously there’s a point at which this reverses, but I doubt it’s two hours. I think the OP has forgotten how much energy kids have.

Thinking about it, I’m in favour of a less extreme version of the OP’s “two hours’ affirmation a day” plan. Perhaps schools should run an hour’s compulsory PE four days a week, with the afternoon of the fifth day given over to approved optional activities, such as more PE, projects, voluntary classes etc.

However, at my suggestion of four hours’ PE a week my inner child is shouting “traitor!” at me.

@ 9 Dark Heart of Toryland

“As for Chaise Guevara’s comments, it is demonstrably not true that
‘competitive sports … motivate participants to try harder’. Rather, competitive sports motivate many to drop out of sports altogether.”

Demonstrate then, please.

@ 9 Dark Heart of Toryland

“As for Chaise Guevara’s comments, it is demonstrably not true that
‘competitive sports … motivate participants to try harder’. Rather, competitive sports motivate many to drop out of sports altogether.”

Demonstrate then, please.

To be fair I don’t have data proving that competitive sports are more motivational. But I know that personally I’ll stick at exercise a lot longer if there’s a competitive element, and everyone I’ve spoken to about this says the same.

“The drive to make children more physically active is a good one. The drive to focus specifically on competitive sport is wrong.”

Indeed, for two reasons. The first is that it ignores the needs of those who are always going to be excluded by competitive sports. The second is that it doesn’t address the question of how to maintain physical activity after the end of school and how to make the transition to forms of physical activity that are suitable for different stages of life. The ethos of competitive sport can be inspiring but also tends to denigrate forms of physical activity that can be maintained in adulthood and carried out by just about anyone.

What we are laying in place has more in common with the principles of Hitler Youth.

You had me till this part – then you looked like a hysterical idiot.

A great legacy for the Olympics would be that we instate a mandatory two hours of “whatever you are best at” for each child.

They’d go blind.

It will be unworkable. The schools can’t afford it and don’t have the facilities and the government won’t give extra help. It’s just some ridiculous propaganda to generate political capital out of the Olympics and will be forgotten in a couple of weeks.

I hated a lot of PE, and why? cos of the nasty competitiveness, and lack of actual tuition. Pushing kids into this is not good. what kids need is to find their sports, their interests naturally, when they enjoy it they will want to be g…ood at it. like other issues Polititions should keep their noses out. We proved we did a great job so why change the recipe. I loved seeing the GOOD sportsmanship in Olympics. It’s a great inspiration it really is, more good sportsmanship and good teaching and less child bullying, thanks.

Try this on the average salaries paid to professional footballers – and those incomes are for past years before the recent deal by the FA to sell home TV rights for £3 billion over the three years from 2013/14:
http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2011/10/30/revealed-official-english-football-wage-figures-for-the-past-25-years-301002/

“The astonishing growth in the value of domestic broadcast rights, from £1.7 billion in the current three-year cycle to £3.018 billion for the three years from the 2013-14 season, has led many to speculate that the overall Premier League income could rise beyond £5 billion once its international broadcast contracts are concluded.” [Telegraph 15 June 2012]

News of that has percolated down. The local social housing estate near where I live now features a football academy, starting with 6 year-olds. Why bother with doing reading, writing and maths in primary school if you can earn that sort of money playing football?

@ 16

“It’s a great inspiration it really is, more good sportsmanship and good teaching and less child bullying, thanks”

Agreed on that. I still think competitive sports are good in some ways, but perhaps schools should move away from team games where less capable kids are left out or blamed by their teammates for not being good enough.

I also really don’t know why schools persist with that method of picking teams where two captains take it in turns to select members. It’s humiliating for the people who are always chosen last and sends them the message that sport isn’t for them. Surely, after a few classes, the teacher should have an idea of who’s good and who isn’t… and is it *that* important for teams to be balanced?

One good thing my school did in the summer was to give everyone the option of playing football or tennis. I always picked tennis as it didn’t mean being a millstone for the team.

Dan@11.26 – exactly! This 2 hours of PE is just another of the off-the-cuff blabs which the new breed of Tories just cannot help but barf up. Whats the point of 2 hours of PE every day when thousands of playing fields have been sold off by previous governments, while this government clearly couldnt give a monkeys either. Yes, exercise in schools is important, whether its competitive or not, but so are critical attitudes towards food and lifestyle which would be just as valuable throughout life.

Chaise: “I also really don’t know why schools persist with that method of picking teams where two captains take it in turns to select members. ”

During my old school days, sports masters picked the school teams, not the team capitains. but then rugby was the seasonal game in winter, never football. As they say: Football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans, while rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen. But then rugby is one of the toughest sports for injuries.

Just to correct any misapprehensions, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who created the world wide web, went to the same school.

Although I agree with your view that 2 hours a day is to much I think the Government have the right idea. I was never any good at sport but loved PE you make it sound like a chore I saw it as an hour of fun.

The fact is youngsters nowadays would rather sit and play FIFA than actually go and play Football so maybe they should be forced as I think Pixars Wall-E saw were humans are goin and we have to buck the trend.

@ 19 Mike

“Whats the point of 2 hours of PE every day when thousands of playing fields have been sold off by previous governments, while this government clearly couldnt give a monkeys either. Yes, exercise in schools is important, whether its competitive or not, but so are critical attitudes towards food and lifestyle which would be just as valuable throughout life.”

Frankly I think these are two very bizarre points. The fact that some playing fields have been sold off does not more PE pointless, nor does it make it impossible (I bet those schools still have playgrounds and gyms, and two of my schools sometimes used common land for PE). And teaching PE doesn’t prevent you from teaching kids about healthy eating as well.

@ 20 Bob

“During my old school days, sports masters picked the school teams, not the team capitains”

A much better system.

I quite like the idea of loads of sports at school, and I was fucking dreadful at sports at school (ex-swimming). The point being that if I’d have done two hours a day, I wouldn’t have been shit, and I suspect neither would you. Doing exercise also tends to give you more energy, hence why geeks are so lethargic and rugby players have so much energy to act like cocks.

PS Shatterface wins the comments.

The Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk has been stripped of her Olympic gold medal after failing a doping test.
http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana: The Life of Reason

is it not the fact that this whole thing is just PR fodder anyway and wont happen?

Do the number crunch.

Take an average secondary school with say 1000 pupils. Lets assume they have 4 double periods a day of around 1 hour 15 mins. If you want 2 hours of PE a day that means that effectively 2 of those double periods are taken up per day for everyone.

Or in other words 500 pupils, at any given time, doing PE.

How many schools have the sports facilities for that? How many even have adequate changing rooms for that? I have the privelage of going to an excellent (state) school with amazing sport facilities that were the envy of most of the county and at the time they had changing rooms for around 200 pupils at a time to get changed.

And that is before you get to what are the kids actually going to do? My school had a Sports hall, a gymn, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor cricket nets, squash courts, an artificial pitch plus a massive playing field that in winter had about a dozen football/rugby/hockey pitches and in summer was marked out for atheletics and cricket. Fact is you could accomodate 500+ kids if you wanted.

But as I said above, I was privelaged to have been at that school. The overwhelming majoirty of schools do NOT have those kinds of facilities.

The investment needed in facilities to allow this kind of thing to happen will be vast and simply won’t happen.

@18 Chaise

I agree we’re too stuck on Football and obvious team sports, team work is good but I didn’t experience ‘team work’
I found that when we did netball or a fresh sport, it became a level playing field.
I’d like to see qualified teachers with understandings of phycology and socialogy to take these classes and make sure all pupils are giving their best each class and feeling confident about their achievements and learning for every class. not left to fester. The thing about being picked, even when teh teacher picks theres still stagnent ignorance from team ‘mates’ that should be stamped out.

2 Hours of spinning class a day should do the trick!

At last a sensible piece about school sports. Compulsory competitive school sports promoting fitness is one of those things, like bobbies on the beat solving crime, that (almost) everyone thinks is true and so doesn’t bother to examine the evidence. There’s an obesity epidemic amongst forty and fifty-somethings, i.e. generations who had this. And not just amongst those who hated sports – you can practically guarantee that anyone sporting the England rugby shirt in public also displays a large beer belly. A number of other countries don’t have school sports, but they do manage to produce active citizens. I am literate and well-read, but school EngLit put me off Dickens and Shakespere for life – school sports has a similar effect on many boys and even more girls.

There’s also the question of resources that people are dodging now – latterly sports funding has been more focused on elite athletes to they can, er, medal at the expense of earlier sport for all.

@ 27 standardmark

“I found that when we did netball or a fresh sport, it became a level playing field.”

I suspect one of the reasons I preferred tennis to football was that it’s generally less convenient to play tennis outside of school (you need a court, not just an open space with jumpers for goalposts), so the other kids had less practice. And I did sometimes play tennis with mates on weekends, in a very half-arsed way. So I was around the middle of the class, not the bottom.

“I’d like to see qualified teachers with understandings of phycology and socialogy to take these classes and make sure all pupils are giving their best each class and feeling confident about their achievements and learning for every class. not left to fester.”

Agreed.

“The thing about being picked, even when teh teacher picks theres still stagnent ignorance from team ‘mates’ that should be stamped out. ”

One of the big problems in some games: if people don’t pass to you because you’re considered to be bad, you’re not going to get any better. So it actually exacerbates the problem. It’s as if they divided each maths class into two teams for each lesson, and only the best people in each team got to do any maths.

@ 29 Jonathan

That’s generally a fair comment, but I think your bias is showing when you describe an article that compares PE lessons to the Hitler Youth as “sensible”.

Increased PE/sports is a good idea in theory… but you need the resources to both allow the good-at-sports to compete to the maximum of their ability and the bad-at-sports to enjoy it instead of becoming bitter over their lack of aptitude in this area.

I was terrible at all sports: slow, asthmatic; only interested in football at a rugby-playing school. So I routinely got out of games lessons most weeks… for six years. Either my excuses were particularly convincing, or my sports teachers knew I was a pointless cause.

I used to always get ‘4A’ on my school reports for games, which meant ‘total crap, but can’t do any better’, but I didn’t care, as I just wasn’t going to be sneered at for being rubbish at sports. That’s why I got out of them.

If at first you don’t succeed, try try again—but only if you have a realistic chance of success on your own terms. Otherwise it is not worth doing.

Surely the best thing to do is simply broaden the number of sports kids can do at school.

Most schools have limited facilities for sports. Many don’t have a swimming pool. Often they don’t have a long jump pit. Some don’t have a weights room. And so on.

Offering more choice to kids about the sports they do would be a better way of encouraging greater participation in sport among kids.

Obviously the cuts to the education budget has seen a lot of schools start the process of selling off their school playing fields – and will mean new sports facilities are simply not even considered as a sensible use of money.

Which is fair enough. Our education system is structured around competition. Schools and teachers basically compete to prove their worth by getting exam results out of kids. Some exercise can help with that because it improves a child’s behaviour and their concentration levels. But it is expensive compared to extra homework – so the cheaper option is understandably (and rightly – in the context of a competitive schools system) taken up most often.

Of course whether the sports offered are competitive matters relatively little. What matters is offering competitive and non competitive physical activity, and a broad range of both.

That will of course cost money though.

@ 32 Cheesy Monkey

“Increased PE/sports is a good idea in theory… but you need the resources to both allow the good-at-sports to compete to the maximum of their ability and the bad-at-sports to enjoy it instead of becoming bitter over their lack of aptitude in this area.”

You’ve just dredged up a memory from school… most of our classes were streamed, and I was always annoyed that this didn’t happen with PE (which was either unstreamed or used academic streaming; either way it wasn’t streamed on sporting ability). Surely streaming is if anything more important in PE, as not only do you have the same issue of some kids learning faster, but they’re also often put into direct competition with each other?

Streaming would fix a lot of these problems, I think. I certainly would have enjoyed sport more if I’d been able to do it alongside my malcoordinated fellows.

Sometime the media narrative is wrong.

Interesting that latest ICM polls on a Boris-led Tory Party indicate he’d barely shift their position in voting intention. Put simply, Miliband would still be on course to win in 2015, even with Johnson as Conservative Party leader.

The real winner, looking at the headlines in the Daily Mail and Telegraph is the BBC… when even the Mail is, in its editorial, describing the BBC as ‘brilliant’, you know the beeb is on a roll.

http://etonmess.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-real-winner-from-olympics-isnt.html

@34

Absolutely. Streaming can be very important within schools: I floundered in GCSE Maths for over a year because I was in too-high a stream; dropping into the third-tier stream probably ensured I got a decent grade in the subject. [Also worth remembering at the time (and I presume now) the exam was streamed as well—there were two versions: basic and higher if I recall].

The thing here to remember is that streaming is not selection, as a pupil can be ‘re-streamed’ if and when their abilities and capabilities in any subject change over time.

My Game Makers Olympics….

http://haringeygreens.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/london-2012-olympics-workers-and.html

@ 36 Cheesy

Yeah, we had multiple maths papers too. Possibly three to choose from.

You’re right about streaming not being selection, but my school treated it almost the same way: you were sorted on arrival (presumably based on SAT scores and/or the judgement of a talkative hat), moved around if you were obviously in the wrong set in Year 7, and then… stayed wherever you were. There seemed to be very little movement between sets during Years 8–11, and I doubt there was a process for proactively considering whether moving people was a good idea.

That’s not an argument against streaming, just a warning that it has to be properly applied. Other people had different experiences and tell me that the possibility of being moved down was used as an effective and very real threat.

I think that 2 hours of sports/PE per day is on the high side except for those aiming for the Olympics or professional sport but increasing the amount would improve the long-term health of the average pupil. We currently have an obesity epidemic – not among my generation, of which a majority/large minority walked or cycled to school and played football in the back garden/street but those generations for whom teachers prescribed caucus races (“all have won and all must have a prize”).
Jonathan #29 is just plain wrong. Firstly, the obesity epidemic is visibly greater among the young (although some of them *look* 40-50 as a result) and secondly any 45-year-old went to school between 1972 and 1982: years when ILEA was run by the “loony left” who condemned competitive anything as elitist including competitive sports.
Chaise has already said a lot of what I might want to say except that, while not good at most sports from the age of 7 as a result of (i) not being to run fast and (ii) being short-sighted in one eye so I couldn’t tell where a ball was going I enjoyed playing so the combination of effort and practice made my performance tolerable except at athletics and tennis (I was able to totally avoided squash and fives). I was one of the three slowest children in my year: so in athletics, cricket and a few other sports I was in the bottom 10% but was not wretchedly unhappy. OP is projecting her prejudices onto a few million children without, or possibly in the teeth of, supporting evidence
@ 9 Dark twit
Manteo Mitchell
Case closed
@ Akela Both my schools had a separate locker for every pupil so the limit was not on how many kids could change but just on how many could change at exactly the same time. Hardly rocket science.

Hi there,

I’ve been really interested to look at the games from a ‘legacy’ standpoint and I’ve created an infographic to demonstrate the ‘legacy of the Olympics’ – using Google searches.

http://www.opiyo.co.uk/2012/08/13/the-olympic-legacy-in-google-searches-infographic/

Some interesting stats such as an increase in UK searches for:

- Cycle Clubs (120%)
- UK Rowing Clubs (70%)
- Boxing Gyms (180%)

Recent Google figures show that the interest dies after the games but if these people are engaged at this point, hopefully the legacy will continue.

I think there’s been too much focus on ‘elite’ sport as part of the ‘legacy’ – I just hope the games will encourage youngsters to participate and for groups/clubs to be able to gain funding as well as ‘elite’ centres.

A great idea

Two hours of sport a day will allow us to be whining like babies in ten years’ time about how standards in the vital subjects such as Maths, English, languages and Science etc have slipped dramatically due to the reduced amount of time spent on them in favour of sport which, after all, should just be a fun activity. What were we thinking?

Mind you we will have a very few more people who are good at chucking stuff and running. So it should even out…

“Mind you we will have a very few more people who are good at chucking stuff and running. So it should even out…”

The sports elite will do splendidly while the rest of us sink.

From the news four days ago:

The UK’s trade gap widened sharply in June, to its worst level since comparable records began in 1997.

The deficit, which measures how much imported goods and services exceed exports, rose to £4.3bn in June from £2.7bn in May.

The rise was driven by a 4.6% month-on-month fall in the value of UK exports to eurozone and non-European Union countries.

The deficit with non-EU nations rose to £5.2bn in June from £3.9bn in May.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19194176

@19. mike cobley: “This 2 hours of PE is just another of the off-the-cuff blabs which the new breed of Tories just cannot help but barf up. Whats the point of 2 hours of PE every day when thousands of playing fields have been sold off by previous governments, while this government clearly couldnt give a monkeys either.”

My gut feeling when hearing Cameron’s and Johnson’s remarks was dismay that they felt compelled to say something. These weren’t off the cuff remarks but scripted attempts to grab a headline, at the same time shutting down any sensible debates about elite sport, fun sport or education.

Mike Cobley has been accused of whataboutery regarding his second sentence above, but it is valid whataboutery in the context of school activity. A wider look at physical activity in schools would recognise that it can include dance and that it doesn’t have to be organised by adults/teachers. What kids today miss out on are the informal kick arounds with a tennis ball in the playground (a tennis ball is a great equaliser) or going home to play cricket in the street. Physical activity is about kids walking and cycling on their own, having space to do their own thing. Looking back at my own childhood, I lived it outdoors (weather permitting) and that only changed when I got my first teenage holiday job.

@Ted Maul #41:

Two hours of sport a day will allow us to be whining like babies in ten years’ time about how standards in the vital subjects such as Maths, English, languages and Science etc have slipped dramatically due to the reduced amount of time spent on them in favour of sport which, after all, should just be a fun activity. What were we thinking?

Why is it either/or? High sports standards can demonstrably co-exist with high academic standards.

“High sports standards can demonstrably co-exist with high academic standards.”

Is there any evidence showing that high sports standards can be achieved in primary schools by the third who leave “without a proper grasp of the basics in reading, writing and maths”?

IMO we should be more concerned to resolve the last failing before we go for improving sporting standards. Poor adult standards of literacy and numeracy will be more damaging handicaps in earning a living than not being up to elite standards in sports.

In international comparisons of productivity, the UK comes out badly relative to other G7 countries:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_258963.pdf

@45. Bob B: “Is there any evidence showing that high sports standards can be achieved in primary schools by the third who leave “without a proper grasp of the basics in reading, writing and maths”?”

I can’t answer that question. You are the first person to ask it on this thread. I’d start off by analysing whether it is possible to identify an elite sportsperson at primary school age. Football clubs have shown interest in under 11 years players, but it is a gamble for them. I hope that they kill the idea now so that young people can get on with growing up.

The official back story behind F1 driver, Lewis Hamilton, is that his talent was identified at an early age, but Hamilton was also made into a sports achiever by his aspirational dad. Dad, the bloke who convinced kart manufacturers and suppliers to back a non-rich family, is a major part of the story.

If you look at any of the sports sites that cover young people, there are always PR stories describing how the sports organisation supports general education of participants. Judge the veracity for yourself.

I’ve just started to read a 1963 biography by John Surtees, a world champion on bikes and in cars, in which he writes about his regret that he was unable to follow a formal education in engineering. That was a cracking good message to send — one that may have been uncomfortable to lads reading it at the time. (Historical note: John Surtees established himself as a smart engineering geezer and founded a remarkably unlucky team.)

Charlieman

Elite sports are for the few and some of them will become wealthy as a result but we need to worry about general living standards and whether Britain’s primary and secondary schooling is providing the quality of education that businesses can reasonably expect of its employees. There is abundant evidence that we have solid reasons for concern – as evidenced in many of the links that I’ve posted in Olympic threads.

Political spin about the Olympics is being used to bury unwelcome news. With all the understandable popular euphoria, we are overlooking hidden costs such as this:

Army warns Olympic Games recovery will take two years
Military faces big task to get back to normal, says planning chief, after deploying 18,000 troops to London 2012 duties
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/13/army-olympic-games-recovery-two-years?newsfeed=true

A good post. I agree with your ideas. These are my thoughts

http://samedifference1.com/2012/08/11/will-olympic-legacy-spell-the-end-of-inclusive-education/

The way to do PE properly would be to give kids a wide choice of activities to do — some comptitive and some not — so that they’re likely to find something they like.

2 hours a day is too much though, unless you’re aiming to be an Olympic medallist which obviously the vast majority of children will never be.

At school, I must confess that I enjoyed playing rugby – football wasn’t allowed – although I never played it again on leaving school and going to uni. But I was and am aware that some class mates didn’t share that enthusiasm – why should they and why should it be inflicted upon them regardless? What purpose is achieved by that?

It beats me why competitive sports at school is taken by some to be the form of competition which all should be compelled to engage in. Is that due to Wellington’s diagnosis that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton? What of academic competition? Wellington wasn’t much good at that which is why he went into the army.

What seems to have been a distinctive and valued feature of my school was a long tradition of a lively 6th form discussion and debating society which drew in many. That seems to be unusual judging by my son’s experience of that school down the road, which btw has a far better record of attainment in school leaving exams. Debating, discussion and presentational skills are valued in the job market and debating was something that I did carry on into uni.

What I really don’t understand is the failure to recognise the prior importance of raising literacy and numeracy standards in primary schooling on which lifetime employment prospects and living standards depend. I suspect that the call for more compulsory sports is acting as surrogate for that previous call to bring back national service conscription – just as Germany is phasing out its national conscription. Some folk like compelling other folk . .

@Bob B #45:

Is there any evidence showing that high sports standards can be achieved in primary schools by the third who leave “without a proper grasp of the basics in reading, writing and maths”?

I have no idea. Is there? And what is the relevance of the question?

Chaise @34 took the words out of my mouth. PE is the only core subject in schools where the least able are expected to compete against the most able. Great for humiliating kids and turning them off sport, not so great for the prospects of those with lower ability actually learning or achieving anything.

Dividing kids up into sets for PE could help those with lower ability, but I suspect many schools aren’t really interested in that – they’re more bothered about having high achievers to show off to other schools. (In the same way Dave/Boris only seem bothered about having high achievers to show off to other countries.)

I agree with the OP’s point about competitive sports vs exercise. Competition only motivates those who are already good or nearly-good and so in a mixed ability group, only a certain percentage of kids benefit. Otherwise, constant losses lead to low self esteem, poor body image, even depression in some kids. It’s all about how realistic the goal is. Doing exercise, and being encouraged to achieve PBs, is much more healthy for kids of lower ability because each person is only competing against themselves. Also, enjoyment is important.

As a case in point, my school offered many of the usual competitive gender-segregated sports (e.g. netball for girls), and applied ‘tough love’ (humiliation) to those of us who weren’t up to scratch. None of my PE teachers were remotely interested in helping me improve my ability. I didn’t learn anything and left school very unfit and with a hatred of all physical exercise. It was only after I left that I discovered the gym, and that I actually loved swimming once it was removed from the competitive school context.

Someone mentioned obesity… imo producing elite athletes is all very well, but the amount of medals won is roughly one millionth of the UK’s total population. I wonder what Dave/Boris’s goal is – producing more elite athletes or helping the country as a whole become fitter and healthier?

17. Bob B

I can see the attraction of liking education to football for a certain group of boys, but it is encouraging an unrealistic attitude. Almost no-one is going to succeed in fotball (if success is defined as 1st/premier division). I taught at a college where they ran a training programme for football apprentces (if this is the right word). About 12 students a year for five years. How many made it to iprofessional status? One. One year, the manager changed mid-year; priorities changed and all of the students were let go.

More generally, I support those speaking out against compulsory team sports for all: there are some who will never be any good: the PE teachers know this and, if you are lucky ignore you (if unlucky it’s the ritual humiliation of being compelled to repeatedly fail). I know several people in whom school sports bred a life-long hatered of all organised sports.

Robin: Robin: “And what is the relevance of the question?”

If you need to ask about the relevance of questions concerning whether additional compulsory team sports in primary schools could be at the expense of achieving the much-needed improvements in basic reading, writing and maths skills there is little prospect of a rational debate on the present glaring deficiencies in primary schooling. And that is just what I fear will become the lasting legacy of Olympia mania.

Elite sports will make a few wealthy but the now extensively documented failings in adult literacy and numeracy inflict lasting damage on individuals and the national community. It’s sad to see adults denying or being oblivious to that evidence.

I laugh every time I read Lord Moynihan going on about what a scandal it is that such a high percentage of Olympic medalists went to private schools:

“Almost four-in-10 British Olympic medallists were privately educated, new figures show, prompting fresh concerns over the gulf between independent and state schools.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9473344/London-Olympics-2012-four-in-10-Team-GB-medallists-educated-privately.html

Is that really surprising with the reports about medallists having trained full-time for years?

What sort of schools does he suppose those UK-born premier league footballers with earnings of a million a year went to? Is that a scandal?

@Bob B #54:

If you need to ask about the relevance of questions concerning whether additional compulsory team sports in primary schools could be at the expense of achieving the much-needed improvements in basic reading, writing and maths skills there is little prospect of a rational debate on the present glaring deficiencies in primary schooling.

That wasn’t the question you asked. Again (as I have pointed out elsewhere) there is a hidden premise in your words above that this is a zero-sum game; that improvements in teaching in sport can only come at the expense of academic teaching, presumably because primary schools are unable to teach the failing children any better than they now do. Defend that assumption; my view is that the teaching of both can be improved, and indeed that improvements in one can lead to improvements in the other.

Elite sports will make a few wealthy

And non-elite sports will make very many more people more happy and fulfilled – and physically fitter.

but the now extensively documented failings in adult literacy and numeracy inflict lasting damage on individuals and the national community.

They do indeed; I think you’re arguing with yourself here – I certainly don;t disagree.

It’s sad to see adults denying or being oblivious to that evidence.

Lemme at ‘em – I’ll soon make them see the error of their ways.

Perhaps you could address the fact – to which you allude – that 40% of Olympic medallists were privately educated. There is a far greater emphasis on team sports in independent schools than in any state school; and they routinely achieve greater academic success than all but the best state schools. High academic standards can co-exist with high sporting standards; I believe someone said something similar earlier in this thread, before someone else introduced irrelevancies.

Robin: “That wasn’t the question you asked. Again (as I have pointed out elsewhere) there is a hidden premise in your words above that this is a zero-sum game; that improvements in teaching in sport can only come at the expense of academic teaching, presumably because primary schools are unable to teach the failing children any better than they now do.”

It seems to have escaped your attention that there are only so many hours in the day. Failing standards of adult literacy in Britain, rooted in failings in primary schooling, are deeply entrenched. The Major government spent millions in the early 1990s trying to alleviate adult illiteracy. As the HoC Public Accounts Committee reported, for all the millions spent, the benefits have been sparse. By rational standards, sports in primary schools rate a lesser priority than addressing the worrying finding that a third of primary school leavers are lacking basic skills in reading, writing and maths.

I repeat: elite sports benefit only the few whereas poor standards of adult literacy and numeracy inflict lasting damage on individuals and the wider community. The Germans and the French seem to have more sense than to worry about their relatively poor hauls of Olympic medals.

The medals euphoria is being stoked up to deflect attention from a deepening business recession in Britain, running into a third successive quarter, and the record trade deficit in June.

@Bob B #56:

It seems to have escaped your attention that there are only so many hours in the day

And yet some schools can both achieve both high sporting standards and high academic standards.

As I have said; your whole line of argument assumes that primary schools are already doing the very best they can (academically) with the time available to them. Prove that assumption. More interestingly – how would you go about improving academic standards among primary school leavers? Teach them for more hours in the day?

@Bob B #56:

I repeat: elite sports benefit only the few whereas poor standards of adult literacy and numeracy inflict lasting damage on individuals and the wider community.

And I repeat that non-elite sports (and very few primary schoolchildren will take part in elite sports) benefit very many more.

The Germans and the French seem to have more sense than to worry about their relatively poor hauls of Olympic medals.

It is to laugh:

“Are we too tired for the Olympics?” asked Die Zeit in a biting commentary this week (despite the fact that by Monday night the nation was ninth in the medals table with 22 medals. “Did the Germans simply train wrongly?” it asked, offering an array of possible reasons for the relatively poor performances, including a too-intensive school curriculum that offers little time for proper sport, or the lack of award money paid to athletes by the German government (in Germany a gold medal winner receives €15,000 compared to €40,000 in Brazil, 20% of which goes to the coach), and a problem with under-appreciated trainers. “Our performances are getting ever worse,” the fencer Imke Duplitzer told Bild, “because the system is in a shambles. We have a huge trainer problem. The trainers are deserting us because they can earn far, more in other countries under far better conditions.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/london-2012-olympics-blog/2012/aug/08/london-2012-inept-germany-battering?newsfeed=true

This pop song graphically illustrates the profound intellectual quality of the case being actively promoted for those extra resources for elite sports and for additional compulsory competitive team sports in primary schools:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19241028

There really are more important issues to concern us, ranging from the present dire state of Britain’s economy to the report that a third of primary school leavers are deficient in basic reading, writing and maths skills.

Besides all that, the current Olympics mania is just froth.

If you had asked me 15 years ago, maybe I would have agreed with you.
But I would have been wrong. I was incredibly inactive as a kid, in part because I came from a family with no background or interest in competitive sport. In much the same way that kids with a home full of books are likely to read earlier, if you turn up at school with no idea how any of these games are played – you’re unlikely to do well.

I firmly believe that there is an activity out there for everyone, the problem is that the range of sports that can be provided in schools is always going to be incredibly limited.

However (at the risk of sounding a bit ‘big society’), there are games legacies to be found.

1. The expansion of local sports clubs – long term elite success needs a depth of popular participation. However, in London at least, we have a large number of volunteers, some of whom might have caught the volunteering bug.

2. 2 hours a day is probably what you need to be good at a sport, but it is a lot of time, and not really practical in a school context.

Partnership with local sports clubs means that the sporting time in schools (Wednesday afternoons) isn’t wasted on sports that children don’t want to do. But at the same time gets them spending time in activities which they carry on doing after school and at weekends. Delivering your 2 hrs a day, or more likely 3 hours on a Wednesday afternoon, and more on Saturday and Sunday.

I know plenty of people who discovered ‘their’ activity at university, because the range increased and they had the time to spend on it. Perhaps this is a model worth pursuing.

Also – the comments on streaming within sports and the need for PE teachers who are good at their jobs are spot on. A PE teacher with unfit kids should be treated the same as a maths teacher with a class full of innumerates.

@ 60 Ed

“A PE teacher with unfit kids should be treated the same as a maths teacher with a class full of innumerates”

Agreed with the rest of your post, but this seems unfair. In most subjects, the good done at school can’t really be cancelled out by bad done at home (there are a few exceptions: a kid raised by creationists may be encouraged to trot out lines on evolution that make him sound ignorant, for example). You do get parents who are opposed to academic learning in general and will have a negative impact, but if a kid has learned how to do something, he will still know how to do it.

Whereas a PE teacher, no matter how competent, and even backed up by messages from the school about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, can’t do anything to stop parents feeding their kids at Pizza Hut every night.

I think the point I was trying to make was that far too many PE teachers write off the ‘fat kids’ in a way that would be considered unacceptable in other subjects. It’s more an extension of the same call that applies to all education

The purpose of education is to help children reach their full potential. I usually apply it to academic subjects, but the point is that it needs to be targeted at the kids via setting and streaming. If your full potential is a gold medal, we should push them to achieve it – if your full potential is ‘not getting diabetes’ we should still push them just as hard to reach that goal.

@ Ed #62
Very good point
The converse seems to apply on this thread with the OP and a number of other posters writing off PE because they weren’t good at it in a way that they could not write off Maths or English without being laughed out of court. BTW I hated PT lessons when I was 7-11 because I had a very bad teacher who, inter alia, insisted that I balance around a point several inches above my centre of gravity despite being able to see that I had very muscular legs and a narrow chest, but I have never suggested that we should not have PT/PE lessons.
One reason why the Public Schools have a disproportionate number of elite amateur/semi-amateur sportsmen/women is that the *do* set pupils for competitive sports (outside lesson hours) but not for what was called, in my schooldays, PT or PE. (They also have teachers who like and are enthusiastic about the sports they coach, so fat kids get encouraged to swim, field in the slips, play in goal at soccer or hockey, as part of the pack in rugby, throw the shot or discus …). It is nonsense to say that a fat child cannot participate usefully in competitive sport: there just needs to be a willingness on the part of both pupil and teacher.