You were obviously lucky then since at my school unless you played football or rugby union (since our PE teacher was an ex Union player) then there was no school sport for boys, and girls were restricted to hockey and netball.
Also the world has changed, due to the marginalisation of sport in schools in the past most teachers and head teachers don't give a toss about it. So you're left with 1 or 2 PE teachers to do 5 school years worth of sports teams virtually on their own.
Yes there are clubs, but kids and parents are often reluctant to go to a club if they haven't tried the sport before since they think it will be too advanced. The school is a perfect place to introduce kids to new sports or to sport in general, especially now that kids have every games console available under the sun.
I would have played RL anyway due to the influence from my parents, however if it hadnt been for school sport I certainly would not have enjoyed several years playing union and cricket since it was school sport that introduced me to these sports and gave me a bit of confidence to go to a local club. I would have spent that additional time either out doing sod all with my friends or sat in front of the tv.



So you think school sport isn't necessary?


Very condescending, suggesting that Seth somehow isn't in the real world, and ironic since people who have little to no experience or knowledge of the subject appear to be ignoring the facts that Seth has produced.

I went to a very ty comprehensive school on a council estate in Wales. The school "teams" were all organized by the PTA not the teachers (because even then they couldn't be d) so I wasn't lucky at all.

I took up water polo having never even seen a game being played. Perhaps my parents weren't as mamby pamby as parents these days and were prepared to let me run with it, who knows.

What I do know is my coach got up ever morning at 5am and drove 15 miles to train me, for the joy of watching me succeed, not financial gain.

I also know my school were more than happy to announce to the world that they had an international in their ranks despite putting NOTHING into it.

I am sick of people who work for local authorities and civil servants ( and students come to that) moaning that they are being effected by current fiscal affairs. Tough, everyone else has put up with your waste for years.
We have NO MONEY for non essentials. Do you really think the number of staff Seth described is value for money? Do you think the private sector could spend this kind of money on things?

The funny thing is that when the private sector get involved in education then yes, they do allocate good resources at sports coaching even though its their more academic successes that they boast about to the parents who can afford their fees - they do seem to think that sports is an intrinsic part of a whole education.

Hes obviously a keyboard warrior

Bless and only 23 posts.

No,the 'ringfenced' bit is misleading the funding Is completely cut from the school budget.

Era of The Biff, I'm glad you said that, I was doing my best to be diplomatic,
Bet he's got a small c0ck though so I'll let him vent his frustration, poor guy.

Really it's all pointless. The money has gone. As stated before other generations never had 225 managers and we all turned out ok. I myself competed for gb for several years In what would be classed as a minority sport and had no support from anyone (other than lottery funding for the last 2 years). But again while I understand that yes in ideal world we would have more money on sport but I am watching the news now and stating that the police numbers are not enough and they are having to make cuts and I for one would prefer money spent on these sort of services than employing ssp. I can see that you have all the stats Seth to say things are working well but again I think that if as a county we have to cut in core departments then yours needs to go too.
I think that the above post that billy rhino wrote is a tad harsh it does come accross as someone trying to justify there existance.

Did we? The lack of a consistently good national team at any major sport probably suggests we haven't done that well.

Also, times have changed. I would imagine that when the majority of people who contribute to this board were in school that there weren't a huge amount of McDonalds, Burger King's and KFC's on every street corner, that there wasn't a huge amount of processed food aimed directly at children in virtually every shop in the country, that their parents probably had a wee bit more time to spend with them, and that kids bedrooms weren't packed with TV's, PC's and games consoles.

School is the introduction to sport for so many kids who don't get it from their parents at home. Some parents should do more for their kids, some cant or don't know how to. I know it's only anecdotal but we get so many kids to our training who were introduced to RL at school, if they hadn't they would probably still be sat playing on their playstations, not to mention the ones who would be out doing no good if it weren't for the threat of getting a bo!!ocking at their sports club.


Now then you've changed your argument here. Either sports funding is not needed or it's simply less vital than other things?
When the coalition can spend so much money, literally billions of pounds, on needless and reckless re-organisations, divisions and siphoning off of the entire health and education systems, then why is a poxy £165m suddenly so vital? Or why not cut the sports funding budget by 20% like every other department? That would be fairer surely instead of getting rid of it altogether?

What do we want from kids? We constantly tell them that they're thick and useless, so they get better and better grades in exams at school and we tell them that's just further evidence of how thick they are. We teach them ridiculous, out of date, irrelevant twaddle in school and then complain when they don't pay attention. We tell them all to go to university and then complain that they're all going to university. We keep them wrapped up in cotton wool and then tell them to act their age. We tell them they're all fat and lazy and then take away opportunities for them to do sporting activites whilst packing their rooms with even more games consoles.

No wonder some of them do stupid stuff. I'm surprised they haven't all taken to the streets.

Spot on there Rob. Nobody is saying that before the SSPs kids didn't do sport, but to highligh 1 example of someone who achieved in sport without funding, or 1 school where sport was high on the agenda is pretty ignorant and missing the point. There are now opportunities for all, for kids from poorer background, from schools without the facilities, for key stage 1 children who now regularly meet with other schools for multi skills festivals playground activities are even structured now. As an SSP we introduced dance festivals (again not saying nobody ever did dance, but this reached hundreds who otherwise couldn't do this activity), Par Kor Free Running, table tennis leagues, cheerleading, fencing and so many more diverse sports, as well as B and C team opportunities for netball and rugby etc.

Please if you don't value any of the above and the benefits, leave sarcastic uneducated comments to yourself, it's boring.

The coalition has scrapped the need for any monitoring for sport and pe to be done in future, wonder why that it? To cover the decline in activity so it's not collated. Would this happen for maths and English?? Where schools can either do Shakespeare or if they want just do some colouring in! Physical literacy and the benefits this brings should be equally high on the curriculum.

I like the pattern this thread is going through.

Me too. There is something familiar about "Seth" and his childish insults, closely followed by a plea for everyone else not to be nasty!

Anyroads, what no one has mentioned, is of course the P word. Profit, and the massive growth over the last 20 years of the leisure fitness industry, which I believe coins in £3.6 billion annually.

I wonder how many of those people who claim an imminent decline in the health/morals of our younger generation have a vested interest, and are actually employed within this fairly lucrative industry?

Billy I insulted you once, and for good reason as you were not trying to debate the issue, you were trying to be smart and getting personal.

The subject matter has gone way over your head, you just don't get it, this much is evident from your replys, best leave it there then.

So do I - the two people with some actual experience in the field of school and young persons sport weigh in with well reasoned, supported argument and then the keyboard warriors call them stupid and point out how everything was better in their day.

It's a microcosm of Southstander at its best.