What Happened to PE Lessons?

The Olympics have apparently left children on a high when it comes to sport. Something I’m definitely seeing with my six year old who has decided she wants to be the next Usain Bolt or in her words, ‘~Win any gold medal winner.’ after watching this summer’s Olympics. Encouraging her to be active and sporty is something I’m all for having been the girl who always picked last for teams (urgh didn’t you just hate that). Anyhow, following London 2012, the government have said there will be more opportunities than ever for children to get involved in sport. They have plans for something called ‘Beyond 2012’ which includes £1 billion of investment in sports over five years for kids. This apparently means children all over the UK will have the chance to try games such as football, hockey and gymnastics in school (though didn’t they do this already?) and outside of school 1,000 local sports venues will offer young people aged 14 -25 the chance to find a sport they enjoy. This may all come true and I hope it will but right now as a parent I find if my kids want to do learn something sporty it isn’t available at school or for free. Currently at my daughter’s school, Year One PE is not about sport but about them either dancing or playing jumping games. It frustrates my daughter and many of her friends who also want to learn to play football, go swimming or do gymnastics. So as I also want her to be sporty it means I have to find and pay for classes. I may have been a PE loser at school but I still learnt to play netball, hockey and football at secondary school. I also learnt to trampoline and do gymnastics at junior school, and my parents didn’t have to pay for any of it. So what happened to PE lessons? Someone please tell me.