Band 7+: Most schools offer some type of physical education program to their students. Why is it important? Should physical education classes be required or optional? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

Majority of learning institutions give some kind of physical education lessons to their pupils. This is essential as it is beneficial to their health and social skills. Consequently, in my opinion, health education classes should be made compulsory in schools to motivate kids to participate and to help their physical and mental development.

Some major benefits of physical education are that it helps to develop students physical and mental alertness and it also helps to improve their social skills. This means that when kids are engaged in workouts, they burn calories that could have made them obese. This in turn makes them to become physically fit and mentally focused. Additionally, participating in sports also helps to teach interpersonal abilities such as endurance, tolerance and communicative or friend making skills. For example, starting the day with a short jogging session increases the Dopamine hormone, a feel-happy hormone, by almost 37 percent. Therefore, PE classes are beneficial to youngsters healthy lifestyle in the long run.

I believe that schools should have mandatory physical education lessons so that everyone can participate and benefit. This is because making such classes required help to make more people get involved. Moreover, these sessions can help identify students’ potential at a very young age. For instance, Alexis Mandalovic, a Russian ice skater, was discovered by his class teacher when he was only six years old during a school trip to a skating rink. Later on in his sporting career, he achieved four gold medals in olympics, which made Russia a popular destination to learn professional ice skating. İn other words making PE programs compulsory in schools will not only increase the number of participants, but it will also make pupils discover their hidden talents.

In conclusion, in view of the enormous physiological, social and emotional advantages derivable from PE lessons by pupils, I am of the opinion that making such extracurricular activity obligatory tend to broaden the inclusivity and participation.