Softer balls for school PE as girls urged to enjoy sports

CHILDREN are being given softer balls to play with, a charity has said, as it suggested girls risk being “switched off sport” for life by competitive PE lessons.

The Youth Sport Trust (YST) said “negative experiences” of children’s sport, low self-image, academic pressures and lack of encouragement meant children were turning away from organised games.

They recommended a number of changes to school PE lessons, including using softer balls and changing traditional games to make them more appealing for students.

Ali Oliver, YST’S chief executive, said children were suffering from a “decline in empathy and resilience” and that sport could help to develop these values. The charity found girls were “switched off ” by competition in sport and many were also discouraged by “painful periods, issues with confidence and self-consciousness, pressure of school work, and lack of encouragement from teachers and parents”.

Teachers should aim to “create enjoyable repetition in games” and play “net/wall games in the sports hall using foam balls and wall/floor targets. Use traffic cones as striking tees to accelerate progress,” as part of new guidance on encouraging more children to play sport, the charity said.

YST, which has reached thousands of pupils as part of a Government-funded pilot called My Personal Best, also suggests allowing pupils to referee their own games and make up rules that promote “safety, fairness or inclusion”.

Teachers should ensure that “failures are celebrated as trials that create opportunities for constructive feedback and learning”.

The Girls Active initiative, in place in over 200 schools, with another 250 joining this year, also involves giving girls “leadership positions which give them influence over the PE curriculum, making it more appealing and relevant to their everyday lives”. The charity said it hoped to end the stigma many girls feel about PE, with bad experiences putting some off sport for the rest of their lives.

Leanne Sharples, head of PE at Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School, said the school’s PE lessons include “impossible” tasks that are designed to make the pupils more resilient.

‘Create enjoyable repetition in games and play net/wall games using foam balls and wall/floor targets’