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What's the Future for Summer Term Sports?

Posted Thursday, 23 June 2016

It& #39 ;s just after midway through the summer term. The weather has been no better or worse than normal. And the traditional programme of activities has meant that cricket, tennis, athletics and rounders have squeezed themselves into a few short weeks, carefully evading and reluctantly accommodating various forms of...

Bio Banding Bandwagon? Why I am not advocating the use of weight categories or Bio-Banding

Posted Thursday, 23 June 2016

I read with interest the recent piece on Bio-Banding in which I felt that there were a number of valid points made about the current nature of school rugby, however I was concerned with some of the arguments in favour of bio-banding and/or use of weight categories. I think the...

What PE can Learn from Maths

Posted Thursday, 23 June 2016

Maths and PE have some things in common. Every pupil, in just about every school in the world, is compelled to take part in both from the moment they start school until - usually - the age of 16. That& #39 ;s 11 or more years in most countries. This...

Why I’m advocating Bio-Banding for rugby

Posted Thursday, 9 June 2016

It has been a busy few weeks for me after I voiced my concerns on the future of rugby union in schools in an article published by Rob Kittson in the Guardian on 5th February this year. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/feb/05/england-six-nations-r... Since that initial article I’ve been mentioned in various newspapers from ‘The...

Software is More Important than Hardware

Posted Thursday, 9 June 2016

The most significant development in school sports provision in the last twenty years has been in facility enhancement. In a previous era, all schools had playing fields and a single badminton court gym equipped with ropes, beams and a host of other little used and understood features. Then an arms...

Replacing Compulsion with Culture

Posted Friday, 20 May 2016

There has been much recent consternation about the future of potentially dangerous sports in schools, largely fuelled by Professor Pollock’s widely articulated assessment of the dangers of physical contact. Her campaign appears confined to an attack on Rugby Football, in defiance of the science that shows that, before the age...