LEARNING DIARY 4: AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT!

At the secondary school that I work at, the entire of year 11 have PE, for both lessons on a Friday afternoon. Every term they choose an activity option for each of the one hour sessions. Since I have been employed at the school, dance has been an option offered for both of the sessions along with activities such as yard football, basketball, boxercise, fitness, badminton and aerobics and one offsite option such as squash or swimming. My dance option took in a large number of female pupils, particularly those uninterested in or not so competetent in other sporting activities offered. Many of the girls even chose to do double dance. My sessions sparked quite a lot of interest in dance and it was requested by many that I start up my own dance classes outside of school too.

Last Friday, year 11 pupils were asked to choose new options for the summer term which included: rounders, softball, kickboxing, athletics, tennis and cricket. Many of the girls complained at the absebce of dance as an option and that they didn't like or weren't good at any of ther other sports, to which I positively replied that it would be a good opportunity to improve in other sports. I overheard a number of pupils discussing with each other that they simply would not participate in PE lessons or choose options which they felt they could get away with not doing very much such as those activities not consisting of team games or simply choosing an option based on how much they like the teacher leading that activity.

Upon discussion with another collegue of the PE Department, I discovered that she agreed that it was enough of a battle to begin with, getting year eleven girls to participate in physical education lessons and by not offering an option which they enjoy was only going to make the situation worse. We decided to go to the head of department and explained that there was a significant amount of girls requesting to do dance so could we make it an option to which she flatly refused much to my own and a large number of pupils' disappointment.

This led me to a more refined statement for the title of my research project:

"Dance is an effective way, with a number of health and social benefits, of encouraging young people to participate in physical activity. Particularly those that are not so interested or competent in other sporting activities"