Give the boot to daft report on ‘racist’ PE

I have never read such rubbish as the idea that white privilege has anything to do with PE activities in school. And as you reported last week, taxpayers’ money has been spent on a report that claims that PE is racist. What a pointless project.

To suggest that white privilege is in any way involved in physical education at school is just beyond comprehension. If anything, it’s going to get in the way of children doing exercise.

We should be encouraging youngsters of all ages to get involved in sport. The range of activities on offer at school is vast, from athletics and rounders, to football and even dodgeball.

Louise Roberts, Harrogate

The academic article that your paper criticised forms part of a growing call to ‘decolonise the curriculum’, the focus of which is misdirected. The history curriculum should explore colonialism and migration in more depth – and contributions made by people from a range of backgrounds should be celebrated in every subject. But criticising efforts to promote ‘healthy, active lifestyles’ is a step too far.

We must ensure all pupils access a broad curriculum but, unfortunately, our research at the LKMco think-tank suggests this is too rarely the case. While we are proponents of research to highlight important questions, it’s only fair to note that schools are delivering what sports they can with limited time and budgets, something that should be championed, not derided. Your report on PE begs the question: Why was such a pointless study commissioned?

Yet again we have the opportunity to feel guilty about our ‘abhorrent’ Western values, which apparently have racism and imperialism as their cornerstones.

However, if ‘learning dances from different cultures’, as the report suggests, doesn’t get the kids away from their tablets and computers and on to the sports fields, then I can’t imagine what will. So I see no harm in being open-minded and giving it a go.

Philip Humphreys, Freckleton, Lancashire

On the face of it, the study seems completely bonkers and undeserving of my hard-earned cash. But I thought I would reserve judgment and read the whole report for myself. However, while the introduction is freely available, you have to pay to read it in full.

Why aren’t taxpayer-funded studies freely available to those who have paid for them?

Adrian Moore, Berkshire

When I read that study authors Fiona Dowling and Anne Flintoff have deemed lessons racist, I had to check the date – surely it was an April Fool’s Day joke? Unfortunately, it was not and these two were given a grant of £10,000 to find racism where none exists.

Oh dear, I had white toast for my breakfast – I wonder what they would make of that.

J. Perkin, South Gloucestershire