I remember as a trainee teacher one of my lecturers, Jon Binney, telling me something that, at the time, I found highly controversial:
“If I would get rid of any activity from the PE curriculum, it would be football.”
Now, as a spritely 19 year old I thought this was a ludicrous claim to make. “Get rid of football – but it’s our national game!”. Fast forward 6 years and I now see exactly where Jon was coming from, because I myself am beginning to think the same thing. I would like to remove football from the KS3 curriculum for boys. Let me be clear at this point that I consider football to be my favourite sport as I have both watched and played it my entire life, so on a personal level I have a deep love for the sport.
Here are the three reasons why I would get rid:
Those that enjoy it consume a significant amount of it elsewhere in their lives
Football is the most played sport in the country for boys, with the most widespread grassroots club network of any sport. If a young boy wants to play football, he can be fairly sure there is a club team in his local village or town. Furthermore, football is the most watched sport in this country. All those hours of watching Match of the Day and listening to pundits spout their analytical wisdom over the games draws many people, and I include students in this, to a false conclusion – “I already know a lot about football”.
Those that don’t enjoy it already know this by the time they are 11
In 5 years of teaching, I have yet to come across a student that, as a result of doing football in PE at secondary school, has discovered a new found love for the game. Why? Because in our society it is everywhere, allowing boys to make their mind up long before they graduate to secondary school. Opinions are formulated already, meaning a significant number (yet still a minority) of students view football very negatively.
Attitudes of students change
Only at the start of football lessons do I find myself faced with multiple students asking me the most irritating question known to PE teachers – “are we doing a match today sir?“. This tells me one thing; students that ask that question do not associate the activity of football with learning, but merely playing. You may say this is a good thing because implicit learning is often the best kind, but in my experience it often leads students to resent any aspect of the lesson which requires them to do all of the things they are used to doing in other PE lessons – reflecting, peer discussion, answering questions etc. Here, I am talking about the students who play outside of school and at lunchtime and struggle to differentiate between the football they are experiencing with their clubs and the nature of a PE lesson.
Furthermore, football in the media very often fails to reflect many of the qualities of sportsmanship and fair play that we try to promote in our students. All too often professionals are seen arguing with officials, time-wasting, simulating dives, using inappropriate language. It is in football lessons that I see these qualities surface the most in students.
What might be the challenges of taking it off the curriculum?
A banishment of football from the curriculum will lead to disharmony from a large majority of boys in the school, and possibly even parents too. However, I believe there is a simple and elegant solution to combat this.
Ensure there are ample opportunities for boys to get involved in football extra-curricularly. Doing this will appease those that enjoy the sport and provide them an opportunity to enjoy it in a setting with other, like-minded students that also are choosing to be there. Similarly, it takes away the necessity for those that do not enjoy it to put themselves through the humiliation of having to demonstrate their insufficient skills in front of others.
Currently in my district we have a seasonal fixture calendar of various sports, meaning football fixtures only take place in the spring term. My recommendations to be department are that we create a recreational lunchtime 5-a-side tournament for KS3 to give students the impression that football is still a large part of sport at our school. This would also reduce the amount of medieval mob football being played on the playground at lunchtimes, instead providing students with a structured environment where they can play football properly.
What are the alternatives?
If you feel a full scale removal is too strong a step to take for our national game, here is my alternative proposal. All Ks3 football lessons become futsal lessons. This will be a positive change for various reasons:
- Futsal is relatively unknown to students, meaning they will have no preconceptions of what the game really is. It will remove that black/white situation of students saying they love/hate football.
- Because students do not play it outside of school, they will not participate in the lessons believing they already know it all.
- If done in a sports hall or on an astro, and using proper futsal balls, it will promote better ball control and actually accelerate the technical development of the students.
You will notice that nowhere in this blog have I mentioned football provision for girls. I am not proposing these measures for girls, because I feel there is still significant scope for them to access football in PE lessons in the appropriate learning environment. They are less consumed by the sport in their personal lives and therefore tend not to exhibit many of the negative aspects that I have already mentioned above.
In conclusion, this is a move that I feel will benefit the majority of my students in the long term. It may not prove popular in the short term, but I think a more varied lesson curriculum and a greater provision of football extra-curricularly will be viewed positively by most students. In the very least, I don’t think it will hurt our chances at any major international tournaments, which, let’s be honest, is all the nation really seems to care about when it comes to football success!
Afterword: Since posting this, I realise I forgot to mention that I do teach football to many KS4 boys groups through a sport ed module, and intend to continue doing so. In this format, I value the educational focus of the lessons and believe it correctly harnesses the enthusiasm for the game in the right way.
We Wear Shorts 
February 1, 2016 at 12:18 pm
I have often wondered and spoken about this very topic with my colleagues at school. My issue, and question, is this… should we abandon football, which as you say is the National game, to the coaching level of well meaning dads and antiquated coaching dinosaurs? Too many times I see line drills with one ball in a squad of 16 before a game! I am constantly dumbfounded by the ridiculous feedback given to young players within the game and at breaks in a game by coaches who are products of a age old broken system. Do young players now not deserve to be taught in a progressive manner where ALL get a chance to improve regardless of whether they had a chance to shine below the age of 11?!
I say if even a small percentage of students pick up better coaching techniques; and if only a few begin to think about how to play the game in a proper manner both technically and ethically then we have made a difference. if we do nothing we go backwards in real terms.
On another side there are a large number of teachers who are passionate about football. i not only want students to improve and play at a better standard, i want everyone to love the sport i love,or at least to understand it better!
i would say bigger issues are:
There are not enough qualified coaches who know what they are doing.
The level one does not equip coaches to coach properly
The level one should be free and should be changed so school level 14+ can do it.
The level 2 should be cheaper to encourage more to do it.
The terrace coach attitude and the role they set for the young players
The FA website and the lack of coaching materials on it.
Okay. stepping down from soapbox now!
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February 1, 2016 at 12:57 pm
Hi Rob, thanks for your comment. You make a great point regarding the antiquated dinosaurs and well meaning dads. I agree the quality of football coaching the community is often sub-standard, but this is often what contributes towards the negative learning environment in my PE football lessons. I agree it may seem like I am “passing the buck” by taking it off the curriculum, but I feel their development, enjoyment and above all LEARNING will improve significantly if we switch to futsal. I think this is the future of youth development and think schools could lead the way in delivering it.
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February 2, 2016 at 12:23 am
Interesting but a couple of things –
It would be very hard to push for something like this without science to back it up. Personal experience Can be very limiting when making an argument that nobody by the age of 11 can all of a sudden have a new found love of the game. There is strong science behind late developers, whether they have played the game before or not. So to take that opportunity away from kids could prevent us from finding the next captain of England/Ireland/ etc.
On your point about why would a kid be humiliated demonstrating their insufficient skills – I think part of changing young people’s mindset is adapting sessions to cater for these pupils. Giving the so called weaker players the chance to play by themselves on a separate pitch may engage them a lot more than standing on a pitch not getting a touch. Obviously not always possible but inclusion is a big thing for me. Finally, the futsal suggestion is a good one, but it is its own sport at the same time. Maybe there is a space in the curriculum for that too? I’ve been working as a football coach for 4-12 year olds full time for 3 years in primary schools/centres so I can totally understand where you’re coming from!!
“When are we playing matches?”
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February 2, 2016 at 7:00 am
I am fairly certain if i did a poll of all students in yr 7 & 8, there would be a significant minority that would have developed a “new found love” for football. My argument is put forward to benefit the majority, who I don’t believe get enough out of football lessons compared to other activities.
futsal is a game in its own right, but if you look at the development of many major footballing countries, it is the sole version of youth football played until the age of 14. Why shouldn’t we do the same?
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February 10, 2016 at 9:13 am
Some good points but for me we are doing the lower ability kids a dis-service if we don’t bring them on. Their experiences are likely to have been poor due to poor coaching at club and/or teaching in Primary Schools. Usually as a result of playing one big game so the lower ability players don’t get a touch and get mocked and shouted at for not trying or making mistakes. If there was more smaller games (3 v 3), grouped by ability then the kids would enjoy it and learn more. If there was no football on the curriculum at KS3 the gap grows further and the kids don’t progress then they would be left out when they got a job and they didn’t have the skills/confidence to join in the staff/company 5-a-side match, which lots of companies do. Just one example. Also, football is an active game, probably one of the most active and lower ability pupils, many of which don’t do any sport outside of school and need to do something to ‘get a dab on’ and develop their CV endurance which you don’t get with other sports. Admittedly, this won’t happen if they are allowed to stand in goal for 20 mins or the games allow them to stand around as a defender, again an issue with too many players on each team and a reason for small sided matches for the lazy/lower ability ones.
Personally, I don’t like teaching football to ‘know it all’ year 7 & 8 groups and much prefer teaching rugby and other sports. But the key for a good lesson is getting your groups right, which more often than not is by ability.
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February 10, 2016 at 9:23 am
Thanks for your comment Anthony. Here are some responses to some of the points you make:
1 – I deliver football largely through small-sided games. 2v2 and 3v3 is very common, and rarely do I go above 5v5. This is not enough to solve the problems I am raising. Also, this is why in my alternative suggestions I put forward futsal, which goes some way to solve this problem but still through a sport that is new and has no added baggage or preconceptions.
2 – regarding your suggestion that “the gap grows further”, why does this matter? There are over 100 sports and physical activities people can participate in – why push students to develop in one if it carriers such negative connotations for them? Invariably, the students who really dislike football enjoy more individualised pursuits such as fitness, swimming, cycling. The company 5-a-side is not the only way for them to stay active. It is our job to make sure they leave school with something they are passionate about and are willing to participate in further.
3 – I teach at a school that has ability set groups. I then invariably group within a class by ability, to ensure pupils are playing with similar experienced players. This doesn’t solve the problem. Attitudes are negative from the higher ability students; I see increased levels of unsporting behaviour in football lessons, and yes, we can try and rectify this and educate them on it, but it is far easy to teach them the value of sportsmanship through activities that don’t have such a negative global press.
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January 31, 2018 at 6:04 pm
An excellent article. I myself have been pushing for this at my school for a number of years. Football brings the worst out in the students that I teach that other games don’t. Like you say those students who have misconceptions of football. If I had the choice, and on some occasions I have done, I would replace football with Gaelic football. This form of the game still allows for the kicking and goal scoring which students enjoy but also adds skills from handball, basketball, rugby while developing control through the co-ordination needed to make high and low catches. I am lucky also that I play this along with Rugby out of school do have the experience to teach it, but I have only taken up playing the game while at university. Reflecting back I really wish my teachers at school had used this instead of football. It can really change the pecking order of who is the “top dog” in the class. We offer all students provision through FUTSAL and our students have the opportunity to enter a team with there peers and take part in FUTSAL on a Frisay lunch time at school. For some this is the highlight of the week and it has be so popular we have had to run a second day on a Monday (it must be noted here we have an exceptionally large sports hall that can fit two 5v5 FUTSAL Games on at a time). We also enter the school cups and league competitions, county cup completions in 9v9/11v11 football and have represented the city and county at competitions through football. We also offer open training sessions for students both in and at the fringes of the school football team during September and October and March and April. None of this success is built on what we do through the curriculum. Therefore the provision is there. Those students that want to come and play a form of football have the opportunity, those that don’t want to have the option to not participate (and often these types of students enjoy activities like Fitness and Dodgeball). So I am all for getting rid of football and replacing it with the GAA version or even flag American football or Aussie rules.
I would agree with keeping it on a year 10/11 options block as this has worked successfully for students at our school in the past. Those that do, do. Those that don’t, don’t and more children and young people are active and engaged.
Also note that I am a massive football fan, played it throughout my life, coached it for the local Championship clubs community scheme and took my Level 3 in football coaching while coaching the University ladies second team. But there are more sports out there than football.
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