Time for Jumping Jack Flash to sit down?
As The Telegraph launches a campaign to get more girls involved in school sport, our writers share their memories of PE
Physical education lessons bring to mind happy memories for few of us – particularly girls, who are often overlooked when it comes to sport at school. The Telegraph is seeking to redress the balance with Girls, Inspired: a new campaign to close a gender gap that sees 28 per cent of girls opt out of getting involved due to a lack of confidence, while 27 per cent are loathe to put their running shoes on, as they don’t like people watching. Below, our writers recall their school sporting feats – some more fondly than others… Judith Woods Nylon skirts. Flappy bottlegreen bloomers. Unbranded trainers. Boundless humiliation. For my generation of girls, PE was primarily an exercise in shame. At my convent grammar, standards were so hilariously low that the hockey team was disbanded because we hadn’t scored a goal in three years – including during weekly practice.
Despite being 5ft 2in by the age of 14, I represented the school at county level in the shot put.
Pretty impressive, huh? Until I point out that I was also the best they could field in the 100 metres.
Oh, and the 800 metres. There was talk of the long jump too but common sense prevailed.
Having said that, I dimly recall a nightmarish 400-metre relay race too, when we appeared, against all the odds, to be winning.
I was third to run. Imagine my euphoria as I handed over the baton to my team-mate, then gave her a great big shove to help… and she went face-down on the all-weather track. She may well be tweezering out the embedded grit to this very day.
The life-enhancing benefits of sport can’t be overestimated, and I hope today’s schoolgirls get an equal chance at it.
And I say that as the finest shotputter this country never had. Sophia Money-coutts I was a “big girl” at school. It’s not an expression any sensible PE teacher would use these days but I spent the Nineties knowing that’s what I was.
Tall and chubby, my torso soft with puppy fat, I was very aware of my size and lack of athleticism. Unfortunately, so were my PE teachers, who ushered me towards all the unglamorous defence positions – a human bollard in a gym skirt. In netball, this meant goal keeper instead of the more sprightly centre; in lacrosse, it was something boring on the wing where I didn’t have to move much.
At primary school, gym classes were a special trauma; I was the only girl in my year not to be awarded a gym badge because I couldn’t manage a roly-poly. At secondary school, this agony extended to athletics, where I was encouraged away from the track and towards shot-putting. Swimming was hell. The thought of squeezing my stomach into a costume meant I consistently lied about having my period. This went on for so long that a teacher suggested I see the nurse.
My size felt unfair. The sporty girls were the “cool” ones, the girls who had boyfriends and thighs that didn’t jiggle. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties and started running that I realised both the benefit of exercise and that my shape didn’t have to preclude me from certain activities. How I wish I’d understood earlier, so I didn’t castigate myself as a tubby weakling for a decade. Although I’m still not sure I could do a somersault. Marina Fogle I set one record at school, and that was for consistently failing to get into any team, at any point, during my seven years there. As far as I know, to this day, my record has not been beaten.
Looking back, it wasn’t that I was desperately un-sporty, I just lacked confidence: the confidence to stick my neck out and risk failing. It is no surprise to me that research from Sport England and Youth Sport trust has deduced that enjoyment, rather than the prospect of winning, spurs girls on to participate most of all.
The lowest part of my week was a Wednesday, when we were forced to run “Rhodie” – a 1.5-mile run through the rhododendrons. Having last year run a half-marathon in under two hours, I now know this is no real challenge, but at the time I hated it. Mostly I resented being shouted at by our aggressive PE teacher who would threaten that she’d make us run it again if we didn’t complete it in 15 minutes – to this day, I have an irrational hatred of rhododendrons.
My children have a totally different relationship with sport, largely because of how it’s taught. My daughter Iona’s school encourages everyone to get involved, and that’s not to be taken for granted. She adores rugby, which alarms me as she wants to start contact next year, but watching her first tournament last week was exhilarating – her blonde plait streaming behind her as she doggedly raced across the pitch. It was the closest I’ve ever come to really enjoying sport.
Listen to Marina’s podcast, The Parent Hood, on itunes or wherever you get your podcasts from. Instagram @marina.fogle Libby Purves A peripatetic childhood meant many kinds of PE, of which I excelled at none.
Music and movement at the village school (“tippy-toes, be a hoppy rabbit”), then a French convent offering
eurythmique dance in a white tunic (“aie-aie-aie, très mal, Elisabeth!”) and
gymnastique in a blue one.
On the other hand, I was a demon at dodgeball – or ballon prisonnier. In Krugersdorp, South Africa, we did military drills in gymslips under Mother Rita, so I learnt to right-wheel and stand-easy.
Finally, I landed in a convent in Tunbridge Wells that offered hockey, a filthy, violent business; rounders, where I generally missed the ball and fell over, and the glorious respite of netball. I turned out to have a rather good aim, so could avoid darting about and be “shooter in the circle”, waiting for nimbler people to pass the ball.
Of the vaulting horse in the gym, I shall never speak. Most of the above tended to involve sturdy brown knickers and chapped knees, but then I discovered judo: cool, flappy canvas pyjamas, exhilarating falls, hip-throws and backward-rolls. I even made the school team. We hammered the thugettes at Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar until, in my final bout, a vengeful Amazon hurled me across the mat and chipped a tooth. Happy days. Dame Jenni Murray White Aertex T-shirt, thick grey knickers, socks, black pumps for indoors and spiked boots for outdoors, all carried in a huge yellow, embroidered pump bag made in domestic science.
Gym was bad enough. The room seemed enormous. Strange how a visit in my fifties made it seem so much smaller, but the sight of the horse over which I was physically incapable of leaping, the wall bars I never could climb and the hanging ropes only a monkey could have conquered filled me with the same sense of terror I’d felt at 15.
Hockey was the worst: it was cold. It was wet. My shins still have the bumps from the vicious, competitive girls who would stop at nothing to tackle you for the ball. I hated every minute of the frequent PE lessons we were compelled to endure.
And so I became a dab hand at forging my mother’s signature to the extent that one bullying games mistress insisted I see a doctor about my all too frequent bouts of menstruation. A sick note or forgotten kit meant an hour in the library with a good book. What could be better?
Thing haven’t changed since. I’ve joined gyms, done yoga, tried swimming, but the lure of a comfy chair and a thrilling novel continues to win out every time.
‘Mostly, it involved chapped knees. And of the vaulting horse in the gym, I shall never speak’