Getting girls into sports where you can be pretty?

I was roped in to replace a pregnant goalie for the Old Girls' hockey team of the school where I taught in Dundee. I'd never been in that position before but think I did OK. Preferred umpiring - Saturday morning for the school and afternoon for the OGs. I must have been fit in my youth.

We played lacrosse, not hockey. I was goalie as I couldn't run. Hated it!

JessM : You may be right - who can tell? One bit, with a twerp spinning around on his back, put me in mind of spraying flies to kill them - they behaved just like that!

I assume this is part of 'street culture' - the sort of thing that would keep me indoors...

I think the thing that worried me about the OP is that the minister is so un-clued up. I kind of agree with the idea that PE offerings in school should be better suited to the preferences of girls. Easier said than done, given that PE departments are full of staff that love ball games, but some schools manage it.
The concern is that the minister talks like this - without appreciation of issues that concern so many people about girls, fitness, body image etc This presumably reflects the fact that the coalition has to scrape around to find women to fill junior ministerial posts as there are so few of them.

What issues - well this one for instance. The best swimmer of her generation, Rebecca Adlington, trying to make a living for herself (swimmers' careers end almost as soon as they have begun) is getting hounded by the press about her appearance. Having said that she feels insecure about her appearance, what do they do - run lots of stories about her appearance!

Here is just one example:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2527438/I-know-I-look-mirror-not-person-I-want-Olympic-swimmer-Rebecca-Adlington-says-not-rule-surgery-make-pretty-girl.html

I think they are doing for fun feetle not because they want to keep fit.

I loathed sports, asthma, dislocating shoulder, unrecognised hyper mobility syndrome.
The only things I was ok at were table tennis ( played for university and darts (that one required that I balanced myself with a pint of mild in the non throwing hand).
Having now, at almost 70 taken up the one sport I always wanted to try, ie:- seated archery, I'm a happy bunny!

It appears to be some sort of keep fit for loonies, while bad music is played...

Not as funny as the ballroom session I used to play at the Empire, Leicester Square... our girl singer used to get fan letters, written in pencil on Friern Mental Hospital (Colney Hatch) notepaper... one chap died and they kept on fox-trotting round him - The Woman In White paraded beside the floor, making mystic gestures at the dancers - you had to be there. Now that WAS entertaining! Otherwise it was deadly dull - on one occasion I woke up to find I had not missed a note while asleep all the way through the 'turn-round' tune that we played when swapping bands via the revolve...

feetle you don't know what you are missing. Try this one. It is a predominantly male art form .
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iITT9FT_Jn4

@JessM - Thanks - but I think I'll sit that one out... Mind you, I made a record called 'Street Dance' once. It went out under the name 'The JALN Band' - one of Pete Waterman.s little wheezes...

Finding qualified teachers could be a problem. When my daughter was doing gymnastics she was not allowed to do any of it at school because the PE teacher said she wasn't qualified to supervise her.

Street dance used to be called "breakdancing" Feetle and is very popular with some boys. Try looking for some examples on Youtube?

Sorry - I have no love of playing games OR of dancing... other than trained show dancers of course.

@annodomini - What on earth is 'street dance'? Sounds positively dangerous to me...

There is no reason why dance lessons, if they included street dance, shouldn't be enjoyed by boys as well as girls. Some boys aren't keen on the kind of sports that involve getting sweaty and dirty. Such sports are also hard on kids who have poor eyesight or are hard of hearing.

I think team games don't appeal to as many girls as they do to boys, but teachers of the more unusual sports are scarce. It's quite hard to track down decent fencing teachers, as my daughter's school discovered. What physical activities I wanted to do, as a girl, were unavailable to me. Fencing, skating, ballet even. The only thing I could do was ballroom dancing. I sort of enjoyed it, but at school was stuck with hockey, netball and rounders and tennis. I wasn't overkeen on any of those, although i didlike badminton years later.

This made me remember how appalled I was when 'majorettes' took off in a big way. I thought they looked ridiculous, still do.

Never thought I would write in defence of Cheerleading, but my GDs do it and I am amazed by how strenuous and athletic it is. It combines dance, gymnastics and tumbling. There doesn't seem to be any ra-ra stuff involved (or indeed any cheering). They come home exhausted after their class on a Friday night. The elder one is an exceptionally good ballet dancer and I tremble a bit watching her, but she is a support rather than a flyer, while the younger, who is a good gymnast, does the flying bit. The elder (who is eleven) represents the school in athletics and cross-country running too.

Ballet isn't a sport but it is incredibly hard exercise if you're doing it properly.
I think an awful lot of girls don't want to do sports that they see as unattractive and sweat inducing. On the other hand dance classes always seem to be greeted with enthusiasm and why not cheer leading if you enjoy it? At least the girls would be moving about a bit.
Once I got into the 6th form I spent games lessons lurking in the Art Room and was rarely seen at matches, even as a spectator.

Ballet isn't a sport, but it is athletic. Archery is a sport but it is not athletic.

Maybe so JessM, but cheerleading doesn't involve two youngsters knocking hell out of each other.

A kindred spirit grandma 60

Only just read this thread. * MicElf's * Friday post brought back memories for me. I hated games especially netball. I was always the last to be picked. My friend was good at games bu still hated them as she was an early developer and hated having to stand naked in the communal showers by a sadistic P E teacher. We both used to sneak out of school and sit in the local dairy with a strawberry milkshake until it was find to back for a science lesson. How we were never caught I don't know but I still don'tregret it. I was very slim and active, used to walking miles on family walks and went to ballet lessons.

The thing that I think puts people off sport more than anything else is the way government and the Sports Authorities promote sport, it is presented as something unpleasant that all must do as part of a healthy life or the NHS will refuse to treat you and you will die a miserable death.

Why not just talk about the pleasures of being active, forget about it being healthy or GOOD FOR YOU. Just the joys of seeing and feeling the elements, rain on your face, wind at your back, the chance to meet new friends. I have indulged in lots of pleasant outdoor activities in my life, dinghy sailing, ballet, swimming, walking (a lot), I once even tried orienteering. I would have been horrified to have any of them defined as a SPORT. They were all things I did and still do because I enjoy/enjoyed them and I refuse to let the government and sports bodies ruin them for me by making me see them as sports and good for me.

Reminds me of the boxing club argument... Keeps those poor boys off the streets.

Before being too hard on the minister and cheerleading have a look at www.ascensioneagles.com/.

There is no doubt that this initiative has done a great deal for girls growing up in a very deprived part of the East End of London.

My PE teacher wore shorts like that with long and too-visible shiny knickers under them. She was a useless teacher too.

I remember my school sports shorts! They were box pleated and made of a grey wool material, very itchy! Imagine that now. They probably couldn't even be washed. But hating any sort of sports, mine probably didn't get dirty.