Exercising The Mind

According to Scotland on Sunday the SNP is planning to get rid of the two hours physical education pledge that had been a hangover from the last administration for something called ‘outcome policies’ – whatever those are? Figures obtained under FOI show that the average PE for Scottish kids is now a shade of an hour and half each week.

There really is a complete nonsense going in when it comes to PE in schools. The drive to get children to perform, ever better, at exams seems to be taking a precedence that is unhealthy; a lack of PE is also clearly unhealthy. I’ve no idea what the figures are for Border’s schools when it comes to PE but I assume they are not wildly off the national average. Given that we place so much store in the success of our rugby team, our Olympic athletes and our football team how do we think this is going to continue to have success if we reduce PE times.

I went over to the Melrose 7s yesterday, drove past the new Berwickshire High and the new secondary school at Earlston. Both are taking good, though ugly, shape. Would this not be the opportunity to get PE back further up the school curriculum? Should we as a party be pushing SBC to buck the national trend? The correlation between obesity and lack of PE is clear. But there’s an even more important reason for there to be more PE. As there is evidence throughout life that exercise sharpens the mind it doesn’t dull it. We will have higher achievers if we have more PE. The Borders party should make this a priority.