Author Topic: Cycling as school sport/PE?  (Read 4978 times)

Re: Cycling as school sport/PE?
« Reply #25 on: 01 November, 2019, 01:36:21 am »
Back in the late '70's we tried (unsuccessfully) to start a cycling group for P.E.(Games) instead of "Cross country".
Their main argument against it was that not everybody had a bike. My response was something along the lines of

"Well if they ain't got a bike they can't do it can they?"  And

"We go swimming on a Wednesday and some can't even swim! So they play Table tennis instead. So the ones without a bike can "Run"".

The Headmaster said it was a good try BUT not going to happen. :(

Our best lesson was English(language not Literature) with Mr Hornby, He used to take us out to Scadbury Manor Grounds where we chose a tree and recorded it's growth/wellbeing/state over the course of the year, Mainly it got us outside for an hour & twenty minutes.
Then he had a bad motorbike accident and left shortly afterwards.

Re: Cycling as school sport/PE?
« Reply #26 on: 01 November, 2019, 07:28:44 pm »
Mountain bike racing is becoming a thing in Colorado schools, a friend of mine started volunteering to help at meets when her daughter got involved, and continued volunteering after her daughter went on to university. Definitely attracts males and females around here, and seems to attract a wide range of abilities and skill levels. The last time I went running on a local trail I encountered a local school team out for a training ride. I was floored by the sheer number of them (a few dozen), all very courteous. The age range seemed to be more than just high school (14-18). Cost of equipment and travel are definitely a factor, and the kids who race mountain bikes here definitely seem to come from more money than most. I'd love to see more kids cycling to and from school, but getting that to happen in the US will be a long uphill battle.

Re: Cycling as school sport/PE?
« Reply #27 on: 01 November, 2019, 08:02:10 pm »
Nah!
It's quite easy.
Inform the local authorities how much they will save on their yearly budget.
IF They,
1, Change the law to make it illegal to drive to school.(no congestion or parking problems)
2,Stop all school bus service and tell them to either ride a bike or WALK!!!

Pretty much guarantee they'll ride a bike.


I mean, have you tried to gat an American to WALK anywhere?

Re: Cycling as school sport/PE?
« Reply #28 on: 09 November, 2019, 03:03:15 pm »
Schools generally run a couple of hours' PE a week up to GCSE year as part of the healthy living govt aim.  Some schools allow students to drop PE in the GCSE year and some offer it as a GCSE or BTEC equivalent.  Sixth forms are less likely to offer PE A-level (or whatever it's called) as it's actually very challenging and includes a lot of Biology, so the Venn Diagram intersection between the academics to cope with it and the sportyness to want to do it is very small - making it often non-viable financially.

At GCSE cycling is not an option as a sport, it used to be and there was even a GCSE you could get by mountain biking, but DickheadGove put paid to that and now you can only do posh sports at GCSE (I believe cycling is out but horsey stuff is still there).

Schools can get bikeability people in and this is normally a free service, you just need to allow the students out of lesson for it.  When I was in secondary teaching we did this.  We also had an "enrichment" slot (think grammar school) and I would take students cycling - probably shouldn't have been allowed to do it as we technically needed two adults including a first aider, but we figured we were staying local, kids had level 3 bikeability and mobile phones in case of emergency. 

Our school required magic hats for all cyclists, not just those participating in school activities but also those commuting to school.
simplicity, truth, equality, peace

Re: Cycling as school sport/PE?
« Reply #29 on: 22 March, 2020, 04:33:10 pm »
This post brought back to mind;

In 1971 when (Sir) Jackie Stewart was the world champion Grand Prix driver, one evening I noticed in the local evening paper, that he was appearing at a Goodyear tyre depot some 20 miles away from where I lived.
John Burt and I hastily decided that our school was in need of a cycling club so next morning when we reached the crossroad of the A5 and the A34, a left turn towards Telford was taken instead of straight on to Cannock.

I remember now how exciting it was collecting lots of stickers and the great man's autograph. We were even more excited to discover that the event was being replicated later that day in Dudley, of course this was too good an opportunity to miss. Somewhat naively we thought that we had either beaten them to Dudley with our pace, or we knew the best route, when we arrived before the star man and his entourage.

Having bidden farewell to my comrade, it was home for a well earned meal. Didn't quite turn out that way! School had thought it somewhat odd that JB and myself were absent on the same day and phoned to see where we were, 10 minutes of comprehensively incriminating myself followed and what was possibly a deserved clout from Father (It was allowed then).

Quite soon after that we moved and I considered that the slate had been wiped clean, lesson learnt, never play truant on the same day as your best mate.
I also worked out why they wouldn't let us have one of the calendars at the tyre depots.