It has emerged in a recent report that Irish schools are almost bottom of the rankings in terms of providing physical education (PE) to their students. I can’t say that I’m surprised. When I was a kid, growing up, the teachers used to stop us doing PE as punishment for misbehaving as opposed to punishing us for misbehaving with some tough exercise. Exercise that is badly needed by some of the fat little farts that I see wobbling around these days – dropped off at the classroom door in a 4×4. The Irish school attitude to PE has always been that it was a reward for students and not something to be taken seriously. It’s about time that attitude changed and a reform was brought about in schools. For some kids it’s the only hope they have of any exercise at all! source: The Irish Times
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It’d be nice if other sports were considered too, not just football (sticking ‘Gaelic’ in front doesn’t make it different).
That’s a very good point. I used to dread certain times of year in secondary school, as our PE used to be on monthly rotation with respect to the sport played. I think the issue is more important in primary school though. A variety of activities should be provided and funding from the Dept. of Education for such should be top of their agenda.