Education Quandary: 'The Government wants more team sports in schools. My daughter would hate this, but needs exercise. Shouldn't schools also be helping children like her?'

Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, has recently joined Gordon Brown in calling for more competitive school sports, and pledged to spend £3m on promoting inter-school leagues. But these ministers are pushing on an open door.

School team sports have been growing in popularity for a while now, and we are a long way from the days when even egg-and-spoon races were banned lest any child should feel a loser. More than four million pupils now play competitive school sport, and schools routinely offer a wide choice of games and activities.

However, school sports policies, like most things in education, swing too wildly from one pole to another. With the Olympics coming up, the emphasis is all on the confidence and fitness that playing to win tends to encourage.

But you are right to point out that schools must also remember those – very many – pupils who actually hate team games. If charging up and down a netball court or hockey pitch is not something your daughter is good at, it is vital that she, and others like her, are encouraged to exercise through more appealing programmes of dance, aerobics, circuits or even just plain power-walking.

Competitive team sports can build a powerful school ethos that is great for those on the inside, but needs careful management if it is not to tip over into an élitist PE culture. As games teachers can all too easily become caught up in this themselves, it is something that a school's head teacher needs to keep an eye on, and that parents should speak up about if they see it developing.

Readers' advice

Most important is that your daughter has a healthy lifestyle and well-established routine so she will continue along this path throughout her adult life. When she goes to secondary school she will take part in a wider range of activities than she will have experienced at primary school, and may discover a sport she enjoys and wishes to take to competitive level.

The best schools have both competitive team and individual sports. In an all-girls school like mine, attendance at clubs and activities is high as there is less reason to feel self-conscious, and girls soon look to develop their abilities. It is very healthy for girls to experience competition through the controlled medium of sport – this is part and parcel of life.

Helen Thorneloe

Senior teacher and ex-head of PE,

Sheffield High School, Sheffield

Independent schools have always known the value of competitive sports, and that is one reason why parents choose them. They have never shied away from a competitive ethos and have always encouraged pupils to strive their hardest at everything. The Government is to be congratulated for understanding that that needs putting back into state schools.

Ivor Crowley

Lancashire

At school, I had a hockey teacher who always yelled at those who were scared to tackle, and did more to destroy my confidence than anyone else. Games are only good for the minority that are good at them.

Gayle Montgomery

Wiltshire

Next Week's Quandary

At their voluntary-aided primary school, my children get only 25 minutes for lunch and thus no time to play. I would like the school to extend its lunch time, but it does not seem interested in listening. I believe that there are no statutory guidelines available about the length of play time in schools, so is there anything else I can do?

Send your replies, or any quandaries you would like to have addressed, to h.wilce @btinternet.com Please include your postal address. Readers whose replies are printed will receive a Collins Paperback English Dictionary 5th Edition. Previous quandaries are online at www.hilarywilce. com, where they can be searched by topic