Sport in primary schools

It's like the planted questions in Prime Minister's Questions – "May I offer congratulations to the PM for …" Yes it looks exactly the same as before but less money. They are also still obsessed with competitive sport as if every child is a budding Olympian.

Yes the dreadful Gove ditched the very successful School Sports Partnership that put PE specialist staff into a group of primaries. Just before the Olympics the staff were being made redundant. This is a U turn. Pity about the loss of expertise as the staff had spent years building relationships.

Yes, this lot (as opposed to that lot) seem to play funding hokey-cokey....

The old scheme allowed non specialists to learn new skills as well. I was fortunate to have some of my PE topics taught by specialists and it improved my teaching when I then taught the topic myself.

I acknowledge that there is a place for competative sport in school but surely we should be encouraging every child to do their best and enjoy sport and exercise so that the seed is sown for when their older.

I couldn't wait to go into the sixth form so that I was free from compulsary PE. I hadn't learned to enjoy exercise. In fact it years of humilating PE lessons had had the opposite effect. Its only in the last few years that I've found there are types of exercise that I enjoy. I defy anyone to say that dancing isn't a form of exercise (I'll happily argue that one with Gove) and there is nothing nicer than a good long walk on a crisp day. Both not only work the heart and lungs which we're told is required but also raise the spirits.

£150 million!!! We could set up Systema UK for every child to learn a musical instrument (with all the the proven across-the-board benefits that this brings) with that sort of money.

I get annoyed by the narrow definition of sport that the government (not necessarily sports teachers) embraces. Competitive sport and gung-ho shivering on cold pitches - no wonder children are put off. They need lots of dance (street dance and line dancing really appeal) to encourage young people to take enjoyable exercise.