The School Sports Period: What the Rules Say and How to Use It

A CBSE school is required to give every class, from I to XII, one period of Health and Physical Education every day. That is the board’s own statement, in Circular Acad-82/2019, dated 27 December 2019.

For a child who trains outside school, that period is easy to write off. For a child with no coach and no academy, it may be the only organised physical time in the day. In both cases it is five periods a week that most families never plan.

What the circular says

Four points in it matter to a sporting family. All are as stated in December 2019. Check the current position with the school or on the CBSE academic site.

One period a day. Health and Physical Education is compulsory in all classes. The daily period was directed for classes IX to XII in March 2018 and for classes I to VIII in March 2019.

Two sports activities, tied to board exams. All students are required to take part in at least two sports activities of their interest and ability, and the circular says this is part of the eligibility criteria to appear in the Class X and XII board exams.

A physical education teacher. The board’s affiliation rules require a physical education teacher at a ratio of one to 500 pupils at each stage. Sports rooms, equipment and a playground are described as mandatory.

Any teacher can run it. Every teacher, including the class teacher, is eligible to implement and assess the period. So the period may be run by a class teacher and not a specialist.

This is a CBSE document. We have not read equivalent rules for the state boards or CISCE, so do not assume the same for those schools.

The fitness tests schools were asked to run

In 2019 the government also began assessing school children’s fitness through a Khelo India mobile app. By 31 December 2019, more than 8,500 schools, mostly CBSE, had registered over 24 lakh students and assessed more than 15 lakh, according to a Sports Authority of India press release.

The release lists the tests.

Ages 5 to 8: height and weight, a static balance test (the flamingo test) and a coordination test (plate tapping).

Ages 9 to 18: a 50m sprint from a standing start, a 600m run or walk, sit and reach for flexibility, partial curl-ups for 30 seconds and push-ups for boys or modified push-ups for girls, along with height and weight.

Two things follow. Your child’s school may already hold a record of these results. And the list is a plain statement of what a school-age child is expected to be able to do: sprint, last 600m, bend, hold the trunk and push.

If there is a coach or an active teacher

Then the period is the cheapest place to try a second sport.

The two-activity rule works in a young athlete’s favour here. A badminton player who plays kho-kho or football in school is getting the running, turning and jumping that the selection tests look at. The fitness tests coaches use to spot a child shows how much of early selection is general movement and how little is the sport’s own skill.

School games are also the first formal competition in many sports, and entries go through the school. The sporting year shows when they fall.

If there is no coach

This is not wasted time.

The five qualities in the school test list need no equipment and no instruction beyond common sense: a short sprint, a longer run, a stretch, a trunk exercise and a push. A child can do a little of each in 30 minutes on any ground, alone or with two friends. For a child in serious training elsewhere, the same period can be easy movement and stretching on a heavy day.

What the period should not become is a second hard session nobody is supervising. Our article on recovery as part of training explains why more is not better.

For the exercises themselves, go to the exercise library at Work On Fitness, our sister site for fitness: each guide gives the steps, how many to do and an easier version. We name the qualities here and leave the programme to them.

When the period does not happen

If the period is given over to another subject before exams, the circular gives a parent a polite basis to ask, since it describes the daily period as a direction to schools. Negotiating with school for attendance covers how to raise things with a school without making an opponent of it.