P.E

At the moment, I am not teaching any P.E. I don't mind this too much as it is something I hated when I was at school. It lost all of it's appeal after primary school. In those days, I would pretend I had forgotten my P.E kit, in order that I would have to do P.E in my Wonder Woman knickers and vest.
Yes, sad but true. It was all music and movement and I remember it being a lovely time.
At the next school however, this changed. Suddenly P.E became something that was about competition and for me, failure. I am not sporty in the least. I swim once a week.I will always remember being reduced to tears in front of a whole class at 13 by a teacher who told me I hadn't even tried to do well at netball. In truth, I had tried and tried and tried but no one ever passed to me because I was rubbish.
Anyway, though still bearing scars from this, I endeavour to make P.E fun for all on those occasions I do teach it.
Currently we have a coach teaching one session a week, and though I can see she knows her stuff, she has no idea about keeping a class of children engaged or active. I seem to spend my time asking them to listen and stop messing about, but they are bored and I don't blame them. I honestly think I do a better job.
The same thing happened with a gym coach, who would ask the children to walk on their toes round 4 mats for a lot of the time and week in, week out, get them to perform certain static balances. All the children wanted to know was when the climbing frame was coming out and who can blame them, it was the highlight of gym for me at school.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this but it seems to me that if we want to inspire a love of physical activity in young people, in order that they want to continue to stay fit and active into adulthood, it must be enjoyable. If we cannot get it right at primary age, there is something very wrong.