School Sport
Sport is compulsory for all students up to the age of sixteen, but the amount of time devoted to it is often small. There are frequent complaints that state sector schools do too little to encourage sport and a healthy lifestyle. Since the 1980s it has become a cliché to complain about sales of school playing fields for development.
Sports culture is stronger in independent schools in the United Kingdom, and these schools contribute disproportionate numbers of elite competitors in almost all sports with the exceptions of football, rugby league, boxing and perhaps athletics.
In addition to the many of the sports already mentioned, popular sports at junior level include netball and rounders, both of which are played almost entirely by girls. However, in recent times schoolgirls have increasingly played sports which are traditionally male, especially football, but also others such as rugby.
The leading body for physical education in the United Kingdom is the Association for Physical Education.
In 2006 the UK School Games was established by the Youth Sport Trust as an annual sporting competition for elite school age athletes in the United Kingdom, and for 2008 was expanded to include nine sports over four days.
Read more about this topic: Sport In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words school and/or sport:
“At school boys become gluttons and slovens, and, instead of cultivating domestic affections, very early rush into the libertinism which destroys the constitution before it is formed; hardening the heart as it weakens the understanding.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
“How long, then, Catiline, while you abuse our patience? How long is this madness of yours to make sport of us?”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)