Always hated PE? Irish mammies demand kids are subjected to MORE

Ah PE; the one hour of the school week where your classmates revealed themselves in their truest forms.

The competitive kid, the team player and the gal who picked daisies at the side while the ball sailed over her head; PE was a veritable study in human nature.

While sometimes we loved it and sometimes we loathed it, we generally knew it would, according to our Irish mammies, ‘do us the world of good’.

And it doesn’t sound like much has changed.

According to recent research conducted by MummyPages, a staggering 91 per cent of parents think schools need to devote more time to physical education.

With World Health Organisation statistics suggesting Ireland is set to become the fattest nation in Europe by 2030, 73 per cent of parents are concerned their children don’t participate in enough physical activity and 82% would like to see a minimum of 30 minutes physical activity per day in school.

“As it stands, Ireland ranks lowest in Europe for the amount of time given to formal physical education within the national curriculum while at the same time we are set to be the fattest nation in Europe by 2030,” says MummyPages’ Mum-in-Residence, Laura Erskine.

“It’s a no-brainer. Not only do children who exercise daily, actually perform better academically in school, they are also better behaved and are less likely to develop mental health issues during childhood,” she added.

Look, we may have hated the oddly-shaped bibs we had to rock and the fact we were chosen last on more than one occasion, but it beat long division any day.

If you’re with us on that one, sign the petition  to see the weekly minimum mandatory time devoted to physical education in schools increased.