Two hours of sport per day is unrealistic

Following the recent success at the Olympics, there has been a huge increase in the amount of rhetoric regarding the sporting future of the education system.

I hardly ever find myself in agreement with Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, but in this case I can’t help but agree that the government is once again trying to burden a desperately straining camel with even more responsibility.

As Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT suggested, the government’s statements are once again ‘ratcheting up the high stakes school accountability regime’. With so much significance resting on the academic success of students, how do ministers expect staff and students to take up another of Mr Cameron’s commitments that ‘really matter’?

To make this exchange even more interesting, Boris has decided to wade into the muck and suggest that schools should have two hours of sport per day.

Although I think it is essential for young people to have a healthy amount of daily exercise (at least an hour), the idea that this responsibility should be shouldered entirely by schools is unfair. I would argue that Boris’ experience of sport at Eton is incomparable to somebody attending secondary school today.

There simply isn’t enough time for teachers or students to devote two extra hours a day to compulsory sport. With the increasing pressure on schools to improve performance – regardless of GCSE results capping – there is no capacity for students to meet such a ridiculous quota.

And teachers, who are a favourite whipping post, do not have the time either. Many teachers already arrange extra-curricular clubs and activities outside of school hours. For them to deliver this ridiculous target would add further pressure to their own extra-curricular activities: meetings, marking, planning to name a few.

Although I enjoyed a very privileged education, it was far inferior to Mr Johnson’s halcyon days as ‘the Blonde behemoth’. I had the opportunity to participate in a range of different competitive sports after school, but was in lessons from 8am-3pm. Many schools are now using extra periods after school to offer students booster classes. These classes are necessary for schools to ensure that their A*-C GCSE rates are maintained.

If teachers are required to hold these after school sessions (yet more meetings, planning, marking), and students to attend them, who is going to run the extra PE sessions, and who will attend them? Surely these PE sessions must be as inclusive as mainstream education?

Having worked in primary and secondary classrooms, I have seen the amount of time and effort that teaching staff invest in their students. The advent of league tables and the government’s recent pressure on schools means that teachers now survive in an unsustainable environment.

Politicians need to decide what is most important.

Whilst you can make somebody run around a field for two hours, you can’t make them want to win the race. You can’t make them get up rain or shine, train in the dark and cold and stick at it when things go wrong.

Similarly, you can make somebody stay in school for hours doing extra revision, but you can’t force them to go home and research how penicillin was discovered, or stay up into the wee hours reading a new author.

My point is that teachers, whether they are primary, secondary, PE or physics, are under increasing pressure to provide outstanding results. Whilst I think that all young people should be active, I don’t think they should necessarily be forced into a competitive atmosphere or a sport that they are not proficient in.

Instead of trying to smash square pegs into round holes, schools and sports clubs should encourage students to seek out a shape that suits them. The most amazing thing about the Olympics is the prevalence of sports that are relatively unknown. Surely it shouldn’t be just the BBC’s responsibility to encourage Britons to try something new?

The government should be using the wave of good feeling and positive opinion to support clubs and organisations in the promotion of their sports. Young people – or any people for that matter – should be enjoying a ‘can do’ atmosphere. They should be feeling optimistic about trying different sports.

Instead of forcing people into a fruitless two hours of pointless competition, schools should be able to encourage students to pursue their own exercise and their own sporting interests. Olympic champions aren’t made through draconian pressure and fit-all solutions. Athletes are passionate, committed and resilient. These are traits we should be attempting to encourage and foster in young people, not just in the pursuit of Olympic records, but in everyday life.

Instead of forcing teachers to pick between studies, sports, or sanity, David Cameron has to concede that he can’t have everything he wants in the current package. Something has to give, but who will suffer for it?

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• Alec78

  I totally agree. But this Government DO expect ‘unpaid work’ from everyone, be they “benefit” recipients to participants in the Big Society. The only people who aren’t expected to work for free are politicians and those who not only receive attractive salaries from corporations but huge bonuses, too (simply for doing the job they have already been paid once for doing). Not too many bonuses out there for teachers, police officers or members of the Army who were so superb during the Olympics.

  In Cameron’s Britain, schools are expected to be a substitute for society, and all the failings of society are the fault of teachers.

• Alec78

  Yes. Let’s not forget all other expressive arts (your propensity for music, for example) in this debate. (But then, it’s not really a debate, is it?!)

• zak99

  I had just the same experience at school. I enjoyed doing sport, but wasn’t much good at it, and consequently had that enjoyment ridiculed out of me by gym teachers and more gifted pupils. As you say – no-one enjoys being embarrassed in public. Streaming would have been wonderful for me. I didn’t care whether I won or not, but I so wanted to be able to compete. And I know the majority of the class felt just as I did.

• zak99

  It seems obvious to me that the school day could easily be extended by an hour to accommodate the desire to do more sports at school. All Mr Cameron has to do is come up with the cash to fund the extra qualified (no point in doing this without the correct people) staff needed to make use of that extra time. And we know he isn’t going to do that. So if your parent both cares enough and can find the time and money, you get to go swimming like Steve’s kids. Otherwise it’s a choice between coats for goalposts or a fag by the local chippie.

• olivercromwell2

  It does not matter how fit this nation is, we cannot run away from the stagnation of unemployment and the contrived National Debt. We need to address the parasitic cause, and deal with it. We will then have plenty of time and funding for sport and fitness.

• zak99

  You sir, have just grasped the nettle.

• emilyisobel

  The pupils at Eton do 2 hours of sport a day as they are boarders. It is done for the same reasons as me sending my children to the park to play after school or taking them to sports clubs. The school is paid a lot to take over the role of parent as well as teaching. It is unfeasible for state day schools to do the same thing. It is like prep in boarding schools – that is the time that parents of day children make them sit down and do their homework.
  It is not possible to look to boarding schools as an example of what day schools should be doing. The whole situation is different.
  In defence of PE teachers – when I wander past PE lessons at school, the teachers are teaching skills rather than throwing pupils into games. This is a requirement of the curriculum and is also down to space – if everyone played games each lesson then schools would need large numbers of pitches. If I remember rightly, netball is 7 a side. In any one games lesson there are about 75 girls or more in games lessons – that would mean that we would need at least 6 netball courts. This is on top of the number of football/ rugby pitches needed to accommodate a similar number of boys – . It just isn’t possible.
  The PM’s idea of making everyone do competitive sport also doesn’t take into account the fact that the vast majority of time training competitive sports people is not spent just doing that sport – the physical training encompasses a wide range of different activities – one example would be footballers doing ballet training to improve agility and flexibility. All physical activity helps the competitive sports and should be given equal credibility. Dance based activity such as Zumba are very good for lower back strength, stamina and coordination. Pilates and yoga develop core strength and flexibility in a way that many other sports don’t – doing a mix of these things will improve the physical fitness and versatility of everyone from the most non-athletic to the best athletes and the non-athletes are more likely to continue keeping fit as they can see the difference that these activities make in a short space of time. Cameron’s ideas will take us back to a time where the majority of people were put off doing any activity. We need variety in schools, with people trained properly to teach those things. We also need to realise that not all teachers are able to teach sport – I used to coach gymnastics and trampolining at school and clubs but I am not physically able to now.

• emilyisobel

  At 3:15 our pupils are still in lessons.
  We have after school clubs – some that PE teachers and other teachers who have an interest in, and an ability to teach, sports supervise. There are often teams at matches after school. There are other clubs and revision sessions going on. There are meetings. There are bought in after school clubs which run for 10 weeks at a time but these tend to be poorly attended – even though pupils show an interest to start with, they don’t turn up for them.
  Teachers are also in their classrooms marking, preparing lessons or doing other paperwork as there is not the time in the school day. Some teachers go home to do this in peace and quiet, or because they have children to go home to. There is a limit to what people can put into the job – accountability has increased to ridiculous levels over the past few years and it can be very difficult to keep all the plates spinning at times.

• emilyisobel

  Most schools don’t have an hour for lunch and if you go into a school playground at lunchtime you will find that most children are running around either playing tig or football. Running doesn’t appeal to everyone and most sports training involves a large proportion of time doing exercise training. Top sports people need to do a variety of different exercises – that’s why you will find a lot of runners in the gym lifting weights.

  There is also a blurring of the line between arithmetic and mathematics. People quote algebra as being mathematics yet it is really arithmetic with letters or symbols temporarily in place of the numbers. You need to teach these things linked together, or people don’t understand them properly.

• emilyisobel

  Part of the current problem in education is that the results are just what is easily measurable and there is a massive pressure to achieve targets based on the measurable. Unfortunately, the really important bit, which is understanding, is not what is measured under the current system and this skews teaching methods.

  The current debate on sport vs exercise is an example of this. Top sports people do not just practise their chosen sport, they do a wide range of exercises that contribute to their performance in their chosen sport. Everything together is what makes them successful. By taking part of that away, you would lose the overall performance. We need people who don’t understand the whole process, such as obviously unfit politicians, to keep their noses out of the planning and to leave it to the experts.

  As another example – our present maths curriculum has been constantly messed around with – to the point where it damages the maths education of our children by rushing them through basic skills that are not linked together and where there is not time to develop understanding and application. This is through political interference from people who have not achieved a high standard themselves. Yet they are choosing to ignore the views of people who have achieved a high level as those views do not fit with their own prejudices.