P.E

This year I have started to look forward to P.E much more than ever before. I have a teacher I know well now and I have a lot of friends within our class so I'm able to flit from being able to work with one lot of people to another. Year 10 P.E started on Adventure Based Learning. We played some games on the field but as we have come to change units many times since and do more interesting things, I have come to anticipate P.E more eagerly than during ABL.

Swimming Sports came early on, in March, and I had a fun day with my best friend of similar swimming ability and the same age group as last year, because we are younger than most in our year group (and they competed with older swimmers this year). I am not a club swimmer although I'm fairly confident in the water and I came first in my heat of six for Breaststroke, and second in both Backstroke and Freestyle! My friend and I were actually asked to do the Junior relay for our house too! I swam the second lap, the best I could, although I was against club swimmers. For a laugh, and because virtually no-one volunteered for Butterfly, I did a length of that too. I came last by miles but worked hard and it was a really enjoyable day!


I also went out with our most competitive athletes this year to a stadium for athletics day. I did Long Jump and got through a couple of requirements there, and ran 100m, 1500m (in which I got a second placing card because I was one of two people in our age group in the race!), 200m and 400m. I had a small go at High Jump because we had done some in P.E a week previously but I found it quite hard.


Again we ran the Block Run this year. I ran the whole way and we were let out of the school in threes. We were released at the faster end of the middle-speed-group, which I was happy about, and my time was just over 13 minutes - less than twenty seconds slower than the tenth runner back.
We've just finished our chilly time in our heated school pool, because, of course, it is quite freezing getting out, first thing in the morning! I wasn't very impressed that we were split in to an average, supported and competitive group (I was in average although there wasn't much difference between them all) and were made to swim widths of the pool with the aid of flutterboards. We were categorised by a big race at the beginning of the unit. With no goggles (and a stitich in my leg!) I came in after the top eight, and so this was how we were sorted. However, a drastic positive change in my swimming occurred as soon as the stitch came out and I was my happy water self again. We got a lot of free time this year too, which was great. A few days we lined the mats up across the pool and raced across - it was so fun! I learnt how to straddle entry into a pool without letting my head get wet by straddling before I went under, and we did drills of holding our breaths and underwater swimming, which I had been practicing all summer in our pool!


There was a unit recently in which we did endurance tests and similar exercises. Our teacher made us run up the bank 20+ times, forwards, and backwards, and then lunging, and then high kicks, shuttling up and down, up and down, and the pain was so intense! We did sit-ups and push-ups and although I really struggled after a while, and our whole class started dying off, I liked the idea of doing endurance tests like that and didn't mind too much. This unit included the Beep Test too. I got to Level 8 something, and although I felt I could continue, my foot was just short of the line when the beep sounded (which probably didn't matter).

Surprisingly, the Striking and Catching unit we are on at the moment is turning out to be, perhaps, my favourite set of P.E lessons. We've had four sessions. We practiced throwing and catching, then played Softball. I manned Base 2, which is a change from how I used to be in P.E years ago! We've had two cricket lessons, and I've discovered I really love cricket. I bowled a little bit both times, and did some bowling in Rounders too; it's my goal to play a more important role in all our upcoming games and I'm proud of myself for stepping out to take on things like bowling, that I can do!


What I'm really keen for is the Circus unit. I'm teaching myself how to unicycle!! It is incredibly hard but within my four lessons so far (about two hours total at the moment) I have learnt to unicycle fast with one hand trailing the wall. It's very addictive and so will be one of my two tricks that I must learn. (I'll also perform some sort of trick on stilts, because I don't have any trouble with those.)

Our last unit before the holidays was Self Defense. I didn't enjoy it as much, but learnt how to throw a good punch and escape armlocks!
Next year I am forced to take only five subjects. Originally I was thinking I don't wish to give up PE yet, but as it won't help me in the future I will choose something else. Therefore, I have about ten last weeks of PE, which has taught me a heap for my life.