Introduction
P.E is currently compulsory from the age of 7 up to 16 within the Welsh Curriculum (Welsh Assembly Government (WAG), 2008), but it can often be seen as a waste of time and money in a school’s timetable when the effects aren’t as vocalised compared to other aspects of a school, and especially when you see many student’s sitting at the side-lines for the hour instead of participating in the lessons. It’s easy for it to be pushed aside by schools to make way for more time to be given towards it’s academic subjects, but when you look at the impact good Physical Education can have on different parts of an individual’s life compared to the negatives around the subject it can be argued that it’s actually one of the most important parts of the curriculum. This essay will look at whether P.E should be compulsory within the school curriculum.
Health Impact
With today’s young generation getting more and more inactive as technology has become more prevalent in daily life so has the concerns around physical health in children. According to Wales NHS (2018) “27.1% of children in Wales are overweight or obese compared to 22.6% in England.”, the bad health in children leads through to their adulthood, this doesn’t just affect the individual at hand but the country as a whole, The National Assembly of Wales (2019) have said that “Physical inactivity is considered to be the fourth leading risk factor for mortality.”, inactivity is a high leading factor to multiple health conditions (NHS 2012) such as:
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- coronary heart disease
- high blood pressure
- stroke
- type 2 diabetes
- breast and colon cancer
The likelihood of someone having one of these health conditions in their future can be drastically reduced if physical activity was improved during childhood. The amount of physical activity children between the ages of 5 and 18 should be getting is at least 60 minutes a day (Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) 2013), this activity can range from brisk walks to running. Depending on the child this is either easily achievable or not being hit at all, if they walk to and from school each day that’ll be a up to half of their daily activity being done but not everyone walks, a lot get lifts to and from school, especially in primary when they’re not quite old enough to walk themselves to school. If you also add in break and lunch times the minutes can add up 60, but once again some children run around for the full break where as some can be sedentary during them, so we can’t say how many are hitting the minimum of 60 minutes a day since all children are different. As the Association for Physical Education (2015) defines Physical Education as “the planned, progressive learning that takes place in school curriculum timetabled time and which is delivered to all pupils.
The context for the learning is physical activity, with children experiencing a broad range of activities, including sport and dance”, this is where compulsory physical education can help, if we have all pupils taking part in these PE lessons we can guarantee that they have at least 60 minutes of a varied type of activity during their school day it lands on. If you look at the downsides you’ll find that PE is usually only timetabled around 2 days a week in majority of schools and fitting in more means an effect on expenses within those schools while simultaneously taking time away from other subjects, but with the small improvement on the lack of activity they would otherwise get, this little habit of weekly activity can lead to bigger healthier habits as adults.
Physical health isn’t the only concern in children, the NHS (2017) stated that “one in eight (12.8%) 5 to 19-year olds had at least one mental disorder when assessed in 2017”. The amount of anxiety and depression within young people has become high over the past years. It’s becoming common knowledge that exercise pushes endorphins to your brain; these are powerful chemicals that can improve a person’s happiness while lowering someone’s stress, in time leading to lowering the chance of severe depression and anxiety in children. So PE lessons vastly help with the physical health of children but underneath that, and harder to see visually is that it can help them mentally. Some could argue how PE can negatively affect some individuals depending on those around them, with bullying still being a huge problem within schools there’s no doubt that PE is another way for bullying to be present. If a student is bullied for their athletic skills or appearance with PE and it isn’t handled properly by the school it can lead to worse mental health and them not enjoying or taking part in PE lessons long term., therefore not being able to gain the positive effects that can come from activity.
Academic Impact
Furthermore, with the mental health improvements children can gain from activity it doesn’t stop with the positive effects in that one lessons or life outside of school; the improved focus and lowered stress can help them in other areas during school. Help Guide (2019) have written that “Physical activity immediately boosts the brain’s dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels—all of which affect focus and attention.”, if students have PE for an hour at the start of their day it can improve their focus during their next couple of lessons that same day. There have been many studies done on what effects daily physical activity have on a student’s academic achievements, one of which being a three-year trial called Physical Activity Across the Curriculum (PAAC). The results they got from their trial show that there was a positive difference between the academic performance of students partaking in the PAAC trial to those who weren’t, as shown in Figure 1. (PAAC, 2009) below: Figure 1. Change in academic score baseline to 3 years in elementary schools in northeast Kansas (2003–2006). All between group differences were significant (pb0.01). PAAC(n=117). Control (n=86). Improved academics isn’t surprising when you look at what effects exercise has on mental health, if a student’s mental health is good it leads to them doing better in school and if it’s bad it can lead to them doing worse. The academic improvement’s that can come from daily activity is a huge positive to schools, with our current education system in the UK teenagers become overly stressed around their GCSE’s which can affect the average grades each year, but with daily physical activity we can look at giving those student’s a way to deal with the stresses that come from the exam periods, improving a schools average results as well as the overall country in regards to final results and it’s education standings compared to the rest of the world. Social Impact It’s more than just physical and academic skills that can be gained through PE, children learn a lot of social skills through involvement in PE, such as teamwork, communication, empathy, and how to deal with their emotions overall whether positive or negatives. The social skills learned thanks to sport in PE are important to the development of people of all ages. Conclusion In conclusion, Physical Education being a compulsory part of the school curriculum is necessary and despite there being negatives that can come from PE the positives heavily out way them. The number of areas physical education can improve and the fact that they can be lifelong improvements suggests how important the subject is. It can work towards lowering the child obesity problem within the country in turn lowering the stress on our NHS due the likelihood of specific health conditions being decreased, as well as improving the academic performance throughout school and allowing young people to gain positive habits to follow them through life. Children can learn beneficial social and emotional skills, such as learning to understand their own emotions in positive and negative situations and being empathetic to others during their negative situations. All of these being things that not only improve their childhood but will follow them into adulthood. Overall it would be hard to argue against Physical Education being a compulsory part of the curriculum when taking into account all the effects it has. It can be argued that PE should be considered one of the most important subjects within schools due to all the positives it can have on other areas, if one subject can help with all the other subjects it’s obvious the importance of it, however these positive improvements will be dependent on the quality of teaching in regards to the lessons.
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