Call to ban scrums in school rugby, on safety grounds.
Discussion
For some reason my school ditched rugby whilst I was there, which was a shame as I preferred it to football.
However, PE lessons at my school took a format that seemed to solve a fair few issues. Basically, several classes all took them at once, so you'd have perhaps 150 pupils, but they'd be split between a number of teachers. You'd sign up for your summer, spring and winter sports of choice and they'd organise the groups from thereon in. Faced with the rugby cancellation, I took hockey for my winter sport (so I doubt rugby was cancelled on health and safety grounds as hockey had (and frequently demonstrated) the potential to be even more vicious), tennis in summer and squash in spring.
Annoyingly (and this is one of the many, many reasons why I dropped out of my PGCE training) it seems that since Labour came to power and I left school, the state sector has been beset with target after target. It seems it's not enough to let the kids find a sport they like and let off some steam, they've got to be rated against a seemingly endless set of criteria and umpteen pointless initiatives have to be worked into the lessons.
It was bad enough trying to do this in an English classroom. I had friends training to be PE teachers who told me of lessons where no-one actually got any exercise because, by the time they'd got into their kit, stopped arseing about, completed a board-based starter activity about which muscles they'd be using that day, got into teams, stopped squabbling and got the equipment out, the 45-minute lesson was nearly over and they'd have to get back into their uniforms.
Yet another sign that government interference and an obssession with targets merely there to generate statistics for the government has ruined our state schools. I went back to my old school during the PGCE and had the realisation that, had I attended the school nowadays, I doubt I would've come out with the GCSE passes I eventually did, or if I did, the qualifications would've been worthless as nothing seemed to have been studied in-depth, making A-level and university study nearly impossible.
The new push for academies can't come soon enough. Unfortunately a generation of Labour-conditioned teachers seem poised to raise hell over things that will actually reduce the burden on them and allow them to do their jobs more easily.
However, PE lessons at my school took a format that seemed to solve a fair few issues. Basically, several classes all took them at once, so you'd have perhaps 150 pupils, but they'd be split between a number of teachers. You'd sign up for your summer, spring and winter sports of choice and they'd organise the groups from thereon in. Faced with the rugby cancellation, I took hockey for my winter sport (so I doubt rugby was cancelled on health and safety grounds as hockey had (and frequently demonstrated) the potential to be even more vicious), tennis in summer and squash in spring.
Annoyingly (and this is one of the many, many reasons why I dropped out of my PGCE training) it seems that since Labour came to power and I left school, the state sector has been beset with target after target. It seems it's not enough to let the kids find a sport they like and let off some steam, they've got to be rated against a seemingly endless set of criteria and umpteen pointless initiatives have to be worked into the lessons.
It was bad enough trying to do this in an English classroom. I had friends training to be PE teachers who told me of lessons where no-one actually got any exercise because, by the time they'd got into their kit, stopped arseing about, completed a board-based starter activity about which muscles they'd be using that day, got into teams, stopped squabbling and got the equipment out, the 45-minute lesson was nearly over and they'd have to get back into their uniforms.
Yet another sign that government interference and an obssession with targets merely there to generate statistics for the government has ruined our state schools. I went back to my old school during the PGCE and had the realisation that, had I attended the school nowadays, I doubt I would've come out with the GCSE passes I eventually did, or if I did, the qualifications would've been worthless as nothing seemed to have been studied in-depth, making A-level and university study nearly impossible.
The new push for academies can't come soon enough. Unfortunately a generation of Labour-conditioned teachers seem poised to raise hell over things that will actually reduce the burden on them and allow them to do their jobs more easily.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff