School reports - how were yours?

One more rant about something that probably applied to most of us, and may apply to our kids.

Physical education, at least in Australia, doesn't seem very modern, and it sounds like the UK may not have advanced much in this area either.  I would have thought that PE teachers would be trained to meet the needs of a range of children and that their skills would encompass a bit of physiotherapy, proprioception etc (I may not know all the technical terms) and they would have ideas for  fun activities for kids who are either reluctant or physically challenged in some way or both.  Well surely they are trained, but perhaps when it comes to the real life situation they don't do it. 

It's just such a missed opportunity - because physical fitness can help a lot with self-esteem, anxiety and autism as well obviously it would help with many conditions.  I would have been quite happy to be in a separate stream for PE - like a fun fitness kind of thing as opposed to competitive sport.  Though it's not compulsory beyond year 9 now over here, something my eldest is happy about.

PS: I just realised I should have watched the video!  Will watch later

On the topic of PE, I realised that my lessons during the two final GCSE years weren't all bad. There were two PE lessons a week, and every few weeks the activity would change. For example, 6 weeks of tennis and cross-country running, and then 6 weeks of trampolining and netball.

I remember one of the activities was orienteering in the Clent Hills (spectacular views). I and the majority of my peers enjoyed that because it provided us with an opportunity to be away from school and have an element of freedom.

One activity that I discovered I was actually rather good at was badminton, which I'm still in a state of shock about because I was absolutely hopeless at tennis. More often than not, I'd end up being paired with the PE teacher.

There was also swimming (at a leisure centre), although very little swimming was actually done due to the pool being the kind that has a wave machine, rapids, slides, etc. It worked out rather well for me because that particular lesson was the last one of the day, and so it made sense for those of us who lived local to the leisure centre to make our own way home, as opposed to returning to school. My school was not local to where I lived, so when I had swimming it meant I arrived home about an hour earlier than I normally would. 

In hindsight, it would have been ideal if I had been able to pick and choose the physical activities I wanted to do and actually enjoyed.

On the topic of PE, I realised that my lessons during the two final GCSE years weren't all bad. There were two PE lessons a week, and every few weeks the activity would change. For example, 6 weeks of tennis and cross-country running, and then 6 weeks of trampolining and netball.

I remember one of the activities was orienteering in the Clent Hills (spectacular views). I and the majority of my peers enjoyed that because it provided us with an opportunity to be away from school and have an element of freedom.

One activity that I discovered I was actually rather good at was badminton, which I'm still in a state of shock about because I was absolutely hopeless at tennis. More often than not, I'd end up being paired with the PE teacher.

There was also swimming (at a leisure centre), although very little swimming was actually done due to the pool being the kind that has a wave machine, rapids, slides, etc. It worked out rather well for me because that particular lesson was the last one of the day, and so it made sense for those of us who lived local to the leisure centre to make our own way home, as opposed to returning to school. My school was not local to where I lived, so when I had swimming it meant I arrived home about an hour earlier than I normally would. 

In hindsight, it would have been ideal if I had been able to pick and choose the physical activities I wanted to do and actually enjoyed.

Amen to that sentiment. I hated PE, but mostly because the 'syllabus' seemed to consist of forty weeks of dreaded football (sometimes last minute change from something more interesting suggested but put to the popular vote) with a couple of slightly more enjoyable things - a week of tennis, an annual 'beep' test where you ran in timed intervals, etc. But almost always, it would be 'lads, shall we just play football?' 'Yes sir!' (said with enthusiasm by the NT vast majority) and two hours of misery commenced. Felt more like four

As I recall, none of us took the orienteering particularly seriously. We would be put in groups of around 4 or 5 students, handed a map and compass, and instructed to return to the school minibus by a set time. As long as we arrived at our destination, it didn't really matter if we strayed from the route we were meant to take.

It is unfortunate that you found your school swimming lessons to be such a trial. I must admit that I would have found it rather off-putting too if students had been gawping through sheet glass.

That does sound rather good, especially orienteering! I didn't mind badminton as much as some sports, I think it's because the shuttlecock moves a bit slower than a ball and also doesn't have such an impact to hit.

Also your swimming sound so much better than ours! Swimming was a trial for us as our school had its own pool. So no wave machine or slides, and in fact precious little actual swimming. It was OK at first when we got to do widths as we could all fit in the pool, but then they had us do lengths so most of the class was spent shivering in a line along the side of the pool, half naked, no towels allowed. I can't actually recall if it was mixed lessons once we started to develop or if they at least spared us that, but the pool building was beside the footpath between upper and lower school and the side facing the path was sheet glass so anyone who had a half lesson got to gawp at us. So many of us girls had permanent periods as that let us off! I think that might have been one of the very few times I actually lied, or at least exaggerated. Fortunately for me the pool was closed after a year or two or that.

I did enjoy actual swimming and was not bad at it so it would have been nice if we actually got to do it properly! I totally agree with you that I could have enjoyed PE if they did activities I liked.