Associate Professor Jakob Gyring is concerned that physical education subjects will lose status if their grades are removed.

– I’m not going to bombard about whether we should have grades in a subject or not, but to remove grades from one subject in school I think it would be very strange, said professor Jakob Gyring for VG.

Gyring is a physical education and sports teacher at Sane High School. In a chronic from last year he wrote that assessment challenges in physical education cannot be solved by removing grades.

Now he’s repeating his message, after lecturer at USN and OsloMet Erlend Ellefsen Vinje at VG advocated a temporary reduction in gym values.

VG also wrote about Evin Hakim Sulaiman (18), who got six in all subjects, except physical education. He argues that the value of the subject should be lowered, because the way it is determined today is arbitrary, and because the lesson has nothing to do with preparation for study.

– Subject lessons

Gyring says students have different grounds for their best performance in school, and some have the best grades in sports.

– Physical education is a subject that is studied equally but other subjects in school. Many students value today’s lesson, even with grades.

He also points out that those who are now leaving high school have not experienced the new curriculum, in which major changes have been made in subjects.

– Before deleting values, new changes must be evaluated.

Afraid the subject will weaken

The lecturer argues that debate should not be about character or not, but he understands students’ perspectives when they feel it may seem unfair.

– Instead of deleting grades, we should focus on what we teach and how we assess what we teach, so that students feel it is a relevant subject and fair assessment.

Gyring is concerned that the subject is weakened and that professional competence is not required to teach if the subject is simply graded as approved/disapproved.

– What are the consequences if the grade is removed?

– I don’t experience physical education as a priority subject and I’m concerned that if the grades were removed, you would send a clear signal that the subject is not that important. Then it goes from being about learning to being a subject of activity, but the subject has to be more than that.

The lecturer agrees with Vinje that the subject is difficult to assess.

– The new curriculum has made it more challenging to assess grades. It is good to highlight competence development as it requires good competence to extract what will be assessed in the subjects. Increasing competence among teachers is not a stupid thing.

Must use discretion in all judgments

Neither does the teachers’ union, Utdanningsforbundet, believe that the solution is to remove grades.

– The Education Association is concerned about the breadth of student education offerings. Physical education subjects are as important as all other subjects, wrote leader Steffen Handal to VG.

– Students have different prerequisites for success in all subjects. This is how it is in mathematics and physical education, says Handal, and adds:

– There is also no reason to exclude subjects from positional assessments. Teaching must be adapted so as to open doors and provide broad competencies to students. Assessment practice should support student learning and education.

He points out that competent teachers and a good teaching community are prerequisites for good teaching and assessment practice, also in physical education.

– Assessment is always associated with the use of certain assessments – whether the assessment covers language subjects, science subjects or practical aesthetic subjects, Handal said.

He advocated a comprehensive review of the grading system in schools.

– It is not certain that we are assessing students’ academic merits in the right way at this time. But practical and aesthetic subjects have no other position than other subjects in such a review.