Many girls and boys have no interest in it. They prefer PE, which develops their movement ability
Stephen Moss writes about "the contest between the government, which intends to remove the £162m ringfenced for school sport", and the Youth Sport Trust, "which oversees the current system" (Will Michael Gove kick school sports into touch?, 23 November).
However, here and in further articles (Top athletes warn PM not to axe school sports grant, 30 November; David Cameron orders rethink over school sports cuts after outcry, 2 December), you make little mention of physical education but concentrate on competitive sport and physical activity. Teaching physical education is not the same as delivering sport.
Physical education, outlined in the national curriculum, is concerned with developing broad movement abilities – the idea that mind and body cannot be separated. PE is taught through dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and outdoor adventurous and athletic activities – all considered intrinsically valuable. PE does not focus on competitive school sport or non-specific "physical activity", both of which are only part of the broader movement culture.
Most girls and many boys are uninterested in competitive sport. The Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University reports that, when 60,000 people aged 11-18 were asked which three sports they would like more of, the top three for girls were ice skating, dance and swimming; and the top 10 included no competitive team games. Even for boys the top 10 choices included only two competitive team games.
Moss writes: "The previous government, aware that some children felt marginalised by traditional team sports, broadened the definition to activities such as … cheerleading". This socialises girls into a secondary role, something that physical education should challenge.
Despite the physical education curriculum, competitive sport is now increasingly delivered within it, as well as in after-school clubs. Both are often led by external providers employing cheap or voluntary sports coaches and/or activity leaders with little knowledge of PE – thus deprofessionalising this whole area of child development.
Physical education should be taught by qualified teaching specialists, and yet we know that primary schoolteachers often feel ill-equipped to teach the subject, given the paucity of time dedicated to it within their training.
Embedding schools within wider communities, as the school sport partnerships aim to do, is admirable. However, if we fetishise "competitive school sport" we hark back ideologically and nostalgically to empire, a movement culture of hierarchical male leadership, and to what Professor Fred Coalter of the University of Stirling calls the mythopoeic nature of sport. Further, we ignore the breadth of movement culture and, in particular, neglect outdoor, adventurous and dance activity.
The increasing domination of competitive school sport may be the lasting (negative) legacy of the London 2012 Olympics, with the resultant disfranchisement of women and girls.