Rock climbing, yoga, darts, baseball, roller skating, rugby... Xuhui District has introduced one by one the activities students love onto campus, using interest to "ignite" enthusiasm and getting kids to take the initiative—PE classes in primary and secondary schools have gone from "painful" to "cool"
By our reporter Wang Baili
Rock climbing, curling, yoga, darts, baseball, softball, fencing, roller skating... Are these also part of PE classes in primary and secondary schools? In Xuhui District’s schools, PE has transformed from "painful" to "cool," with students becoming more and more enthusiastic. Overweight kids and skinny ones alike are now flocking to the sports fields. Wang Maogong, Party Committee Secretary of Xuhui District Education Commission, said that to get children moving actively and reverse the decline in student physical fitness, PE teaching in primary and secondary schools must explore new ideas and try new approaches. "In the past, we often focused solely on meeting fitness standards and winning competitions—meeting standards just to meet them, competing just to compete. Now we advocate for joyful sports, placing greater emphasis on students' initiative and participation." He said that for trendy activities that interest children, schools should adopt an open mindset and create opportunities for them to experience these sports, so they genuinely come to enjoy physical activity.
Choosing a rock climbing class—for one reason: “It’s cool!”
“Lower your body, shift your center of gravity, sidestep, plant your feet firmly...” On Friday afternoon at the Shanghai Stadium Climbing Gym, first-year high school students from Nanyang High School are practicing “lateral movement” under the guidance of a professional coach. Rock climbing is a newly added PE elective introduced last semester.
Known as the “ballet on the wall,” rock climbing is popular among many young people. Near Nanyang High School, there is a climbing wall in the Xuhui Riverside area where students often go after school to give it a try. “Since the students are interested, why not include rock climbing in the PE curriculum?” With the support of the Xuhui District Education Bureau and Sports Bureau, the idea quickly turned into action—the classes are held at the Shanghai Stadium Climbing Gym, and the instructors are professional coaches from the Mountaineering Association.
The rock climbing class was hugely popular, with over 70 first-year students signing up. After a fitness test, 30 became the “first cohort of students.” Many chose the class for one simple reason: “It’s cool!” But once they actually started training, they realized that looking cool isn’t easy. “Professional climbing shoes are two or three sizes smaller than regular shoes, and your feet are curled up—that’s how you grip the footholds. Also, climbing demands a lot of strength and flexibility. Watching the coach turn and switch feet on the wall looks effortless, but when you try it yourself, you realize your limbs just aren’t strong enough.” Zhang Zhen, a student from Class 1, Grade 1, said he had participated in several training sessions but still lacked basic skills. Although the classes are only an hour and a half long, they often run over two hours. After attending more than 20 sessions, Zhang felt his strength, speed, flexibility, and coordination had all improved noticeably. “Rock climbing is exhausting, but it’s a different kind of tiredness compared to long-distance running.” Now he can easily reach the top, and is challenging himself with even more difficult “bouldering.”
Every time he teaches the class, PE teacher Liu Guobin leads the students. Seeing how actively and energetically they engage with the climbing wall gave him new thoughts about school sports: “Traditional curriculum content is rather monotonous—long-distance running for endurance, horizontal bars for arm strength... It can get boring, and students aren’t very interested. But activities like rock climbing—there’s a good reason they’ve become trendy. They’re challenging, for example, and constantly changing during the climb, requiring judgment, choices, and attempts. If one move doesn’t work, you try another... These are exactly what appeal to middle school students who love trying new things and seeking thrills.”
“In the past, PE classes aimed at meeting fitness standards. Students worked hard but weren’t very motivated. Now we emphasize ‘active participation.’ In addition to ensuring basic PE teaching content and class hours, we’ve introduced distinctive electives like soccer, badminton, rock climbing, and curling to attract kids to sports.” Chen Hongguan, Party Committee Secretary and Vice Principal of Nanyang High School, said the school is building new facilities and plans to install a climbing wall. They’re also considering creating a squash court in the underground space of the sunken plaza and a tennis court on the roof of the gym. Elective PE classes offer students more choices. When they try sports they enjoy, they often discover shortcomings in their fitness or basic athletic abilities. Once they have that “need,” the hard work in regular PE classes no longer feels so tough.
Willing to Spend Time Letting Students “Play”
Every Wednesday is the “Happy Activity Day” that Huang Dan, a boy in Class 5(1) at Xuhui District No. 1 Central Primary School, looks forward to. On this day, his grade practices rugby, spending the whole afternoon running and “letting loose” at the training base in Waigaoqiao, Pudong.
Rugby is a very “niche” sport in China, previously played mostly by foreigners working or studying in Shanghai. Xuhui No. 1 Central School’s connection with rugby began ten years ago when a parent who worked at the Shanghai RFC organized training sessions for a dozen students every Saturday. Teachers gradually noticed that the kids loved the sport, so they worked with the club to design a new class.
“I love the feeling of running on the field,” Huang Dan said. He’s loved playing soccer since childhood, but had fewer opportunities after starting elementary school. Weekends were filled with homework and tutoring, and it was hard to find friends to play with. Now on the rugby field, he’s rediscovered the joy of sports.
For the school, setting aside an entire afternoon for sports every week isn’t easy. But Principal Huang Jianping believes that anything beneficial to improving students’ fitness is worth persisting with. “We have to get the kids moving.” He explained that their school is located in a central urban area with limited sports facilities. Though teachers have come up with various adaptive activities, students still don’t get much exercise—a typical PE class allows only about 20 minutes of real movement after warm-up. On the rugby field, however, the kids run, tackle, break through, and score... often running nonstop for an hour. “The 50-meter × 8 shuttle run in the fifth-grade physical fitness test has always been the most feared event. Previously, at least ten students in a class would fail, but now, without targeted training, most can pass easily.” The head of the PE teaching research group is very pleased with this change.
Some of the foreign coaches’ methods and philosophies at the club have given Huang Jianping inspiration. Many schools in Shanghai have signature sports programs, but often, out of a desire for results, they select top athletes for intensive training and send them to represent the school in competitions. But on the rugby field, the coach consciously pairs stronger and weaker players together—to ensure every child gets to play and exercise.
“Actually, students and parents nowadays are also placing increasing importance on sports, and their expectations for school PE teaching are getting higher.” Qian Jiang, Director of the Xuhui District Youth Activity Center, said, “If PE classes keep offering the same old content and formats, students’ motivation and enthusiasm for participating, as well as the effectiveness of their workouts, will all be compromised.”
In recent years, when organizing regional sports competitions, they have consciously adjusted competition formats and scoring systems based on the characteristics of primary and secondary school students—for example, basketball tournaments include three-on-three and five-on-five formats, and soccer includes five-on-five and seven-on-seven. Awards are no longer limited to the top few, but given to “everyone who participates.” Last year, the district held 34 different types of competitions, with 100,000 participants and over 20,000 certificates awarded.
