How PE lessons put me off sport.. for life

Having just read an article about school PE lessons putting girls off sport I felt compelled to put pen to paper (open Word and start typing obvs). I want to scream to the world YES finally you’ve figured it out.

My experiences of school PE lessons are some of the worst memories I have and I still talk about them with friends and family. I should have moved on, I need to get over it, but I can’t.  The things that happen at school shape you (literally in my case) for life. As an adult I have never put on my trainers without a feeling of dread and the only exercise I have done has either been enforced or purely for weight loss purposes. I cannot link exercise with enjoyment and it saddens me that I probably never will.

Ok here come the flashbacks….

I went to a Montessori first school that classed PE as playing on climbing frames (this is great exercise and should be on the national curriculum). I rocked up at the age of seven to my private posh secondary school without a clue about any sports and having never caught a ball. Unfortunately the teachers didn’t see this as endearing character trait, but a burden. My enduring memory of my first ever PE lesson is one phrase: “If you sit on the floor too long, you will get piles.”

1. I still don’t know what piles are.
2. I was only sitting on the floor outside in the car park/netball court because they wouldn’t let me play, because I didn’t know the rules.

As time went on I grew to hate PE and PE teachers and they grew to hate me. I hated them because they wouldn’t let me join in when I wanted to (because I was rubbish) and also because they forced me to take part when I didn’t want to and then laughed at me for doing badly.

The other things I remember from sports at school are (in a bulleted list so that we’re not still reading this at bedtime):

• Getting changed in a smelly, dingy and damp changing room trying to hide my 16-year-old overweight body from my peers
• Getting on a trampoline with my (also a bit large) school friend only for the teacher to shout “roll up, roll up, here come the two fat ladies”
• Turning up for netball practice and being told to practise shooting with the other sports rejects instead of being allowed to play, every single time
• Massive red sports pants that went over your normal pants under a pleated skirt. Is this necessary? Shorts had been invented!
• Being forced by teachers to shower. Which meant we ran through open showers, (Health & Safety anyone?) naked, trying not to get wet or be seen by anyone else only to go home and wash properly
• The male games teachers rating you as a dolphin or whale as you got off the bus to go swimming. I was undoubtedly classed as a whale
• Finding out I was described by a teacher as being a ‘potential prop on the rugby team’ on a rugby tour bus which contained all of the boys from my year
• My sister being made to cry after returning to PE after a major operation to straighten her curved spine for wearing branded joggers
• Always doing cross-country even when I always came last. Finishing and being laughed by the ‘fat lady’ teacher who remarked “we nearly sent a search party out for you”

Since school I have lost three stone and kept it off, but not through exercise. I’d rather watch what I eat and drink than have to don trainers and do something that psychologically I feel I am useless at.

Therefore, I am so excited that the government/national curriculum/schools may take notice of this research and try to change the PE experience of school children for the better. It’s not that they need to totally start over again, invent more sports, segregate classes etc. They just need to respect the kids, nurture, try to hone talent, become better teachers. Even if they are a little bit too stupid to teach a proper subject (joking!).

Let’s worry less about clothing, showers, speed, talent and more about getting people involved and enthused about sport. Dread is not a great emotion to have every Wednesday at 12 o’ clock before Games. For the last three years I’ve gone to boot camp classes where instructors make the sessions great fun, get everyone involved and encourage you all the way. This could happen in schools, no?

It turns out that despite popular belief, I can catch a good 50% of the time, I’m pretty fabulous at the plank and the shoulders I’ve hated my entire life would have actually made me an excellent swimmer. I’m sad not to have had the chance to become talented at a sport but I’m even sadder that ten years on school children are still having similar experiences as me and my friends.

It’s time to make PE fun.

#couldhavebeenanolympian