Too many of us were traumatised by sport at school – but it’s never too late to change | Cath Bishop

Teenage boys playing rugby at a secondary school in Wales. The impact of our schooling lasts far beyond exam results. Photograph: redsnapper/Alamy

Over the long term, the health system has oriented our lives around medical treatment rather than holistic, preventative approaches that include movement and activity. Social prescribing is nibbling away at the problem, but is piecemeal. A national shift to prevention, rather than cure, requires a strong proactive approach in which sport and physical activity is made much more accessible.

One recent survey called out an important, uncomfortable truth: too many people had awful experiences of sport and PE lessons growing up. Age UK started a campaign to support older people to be more active, Act Now, Age Better, with a survey revealing more than 4m mid-lifers remain traumatised by memories of PE lessons. A similar number were put off physical activity for life by PE at school.

It is a devastating reminder that when it comes to the health of the nation, the impact of our schooling lasts far beyond exam results. If ever there was a powerful argument to radically reshape school PE, Age UK has made it.

That resonated with me. As a tall, uncoordinated teenager who could not run very fast, I was labelled unsporty at school and spent most PE lessons trying to hide en route to the school field. My father experienced similar in the 1950s.

It is only through serendipity that my fate changed at university when I unexpectedly tried rowing and with it a chance to experience sport differently. It gave me camaraderie, joy, a way to discover and learn with others and compete for fun. Decades later, I still feel supported in life by belonging to this community. Although it led to at elite level, that’s secondary.

Age UK’s campaign is an important reminder to everyone in sport that experience matters most. Too often there has been a focus on increasing participation, that people will feel better simply by taking part. Age UK’s survey reminds us that our experiences are what keep us involved – or put us off for life. Too many people have felt unwelcome, excluded and too quickly labelled unsporty because sport was not shaped around people, people had to shape themselves around sport.

We have lost sight of sport’s potential to be a core ingredient in living a good life. That it can be adapted to suit an individual’s needs, whether that is supporting a child to attend school regularly, thrive through their teens or older years, or choose a path away from crime. Fortunately, there is a distinct body of evidence for this.

Although it hardly figures in most sports coverage, let alone government policy, the unheralded sport for development sector understands how to use sport and physical activity to tackle wide-ranging social issues and holds the answer to thinking differently, measuring real life effects and transforming lives. Whether it’s the Alliance for Sport in Criminal Justice or Street Games, these experts know how to adapt sport and physical activity to meet complex social challenges, rather than win local leagues.

Shaping positive, meaningful experiences over the long-term that better meet some of the most serious social issues in society must form the central vision for the future of sport and physical activity.

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