William Cook

A sorry state of play

We need PE teachers who can inspire pupils to muck in and get their knees dirty even when they’re not sporty

The link between a healthy mind and a healthy body was understood by Juvenal — but he didn’t have to raise two kids in our brave new world of social media and fast food. We’ve all seen the stats, so there’s no need to repeat them. But as snacks replace square meals and the virtual world replaces the real one, our children are becoming increasingly sedentary and unhealthy.

For parents of school-age children, sport has never been more important. But making sure kids get a good sporting education is no easy matter — and I should know. In my experience as a parent (and briefly as a teacher), sport in the state sector is usually pretty patchy. Teachers do their best, but they’re beset by all the usual problems: big class sizes, inadequate facilities… you’ve heard it all before.

What’s so tricky about teaching sport is that teachers need to cater for two sets of pupils: the handful of youngsters who might play at the top level one day if they’re given the right start, and the rest of us, who simply need to cultivate an active lifestyle.

When I was a spotty schoolboy, at an old-fashioned grammar school, there was no doubt which of these objectives took priority. Our PE teachers were on the lookout for the next superstar; the rest of us were more or less forgotten. Hence, most of us hated PE and bunked off whenever possible. Luckily, we spent our free time playing football, so we stayed fairly fit. Unfortunately, today’s youngsters aren’t so lucky.

When my son was small I took him to the park to kick a ball around and, much to my surprise, it turned out he was pretty good. Now I had the opposite problem to the one that plagued my schooldays — how could I give him the sort of start which would make the most of his sporting talent? Unlike my old school, his primary school wasn’t at all competitive.

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