Peta Bee: Take Out Choice and Get Those Children Sweating

Images of Tony Blair jumping through hoops in a tracksuit last week were unsettling in many ways, not least that his motivation for performing said activity appeared slightly dubious. His skipping display coincided with an announcement that a "massive half a billion pounds" is to be spent on boosting school sports; that the weekly target for PE has been raised and that links between schools and sports clubs will be significantly improved.

Ah, that old chestnut, Mr Blair. It would be heartening were it not that we have heard it all before. Similar promises were made four years ago when it was declared at a Labour Party Conference that £750m of lottery money would be ploughed into school sports facilities over the next three years. Another investment, this time of £459m, was announced in 2002. Of all the money pledged by the government to date, only around £40m has yet been spent.

Outlined in the latest statement are plans to increase the amount of PE available to pupils to four hours a week. All very well until you consider that only 62% of children at state secondary schools currently receive even the two hours of "high quality" sport previously established as a target by the government in 2000. In primary schools only 50% of pupils meet existing requirements for physical activity in lessons. Now that two additional hours of sport are to be made available, things appear to be taking a turn in the right direction. Or are they?

Extra PE is to be optional and will be offered only outside school hours, which means it will be those who are dedicated enough to hang around who will benefit. Worse, the exercise is as likely to be "alternative", such as pilates and yoga, as football or athletics. While such gym practices have their place and are better than no activity at all, they will hardly contribute to a downturn in obesity and will do little to enhance participation in competitive sport.

Without sweeping changes it is difficult to envisage any difference being made. Last week the Prime Minister also renewed his pledge to ensure that "all children can swim"; that too was listed in Labour's manifesto and is already an established element of the national curriculum. Yet a large proportion of children still leave primary school unable even to dog-paddle the minimum target of 25 metres. So where do we go from here? Perhaps it comes down to something as simple as making PE compulsory.

I hated maths at school but was made to do it and, though PE was among my more favoured subjects, I did not always relish playing netball or mixed hockey in driving sleet or rain. But choice did not enter the equation at my school or others. Any attempts to avoid games - and there were plenty - were largely unsuccessful; forgotten kit simply led to wearing something stale and sweaty from the store cupboard.

So you turned up for your two games lessons each week, reluctantly or otherwise, just as you did for English, geography and art. There was no scope for alternative options to traditional sports; invariably the expectation was of some degree of effort en route to exhaustion. Whether or not this approach should be re-adopted in its entirety is debatable. But it did teach things beyond the physical, namely that life involves elements of both discipline and adversity and you cannot always get to pick and choose which route to take.

Sport, as Blair pointed out, can be character-building. "It teaches kids how to win and lose and how to be part of a team," he says. What he apparently fails to grasp is that these and the fat-fighting benefits of sport can be reaped only if it is actually played. You do not need half a billion pounds of funding to organise a cross-country run or a football match.

You need a change in curriculum and a shift in attitude that filters down from politicians to teachers and pupils. That could be reached by removing the element of choice. Stop pussy-footing around, get your gym kit on and get sweaty for two hours a week is the most pressing addition to the national curriculum the government has to make.