The news that schools are now offering yoga, Pilates* and “street dancing” in addition to team games such as rugby, football and cricket is sure to have traditionalists up in arms.

What will become of children never exposed to the character-building horrors of rugby practice in the rain? What kind of adults will they become without the elegance and discipline instilled by gymnastics? Can you really call yourself a man without a keen eye for an offside trap?

Well, I think Ofsted’s* discoveries are heartening. The education watchdog’s report on the state of physical education in schools today hits the nail on the head: “The rich variety of extra-curricular programmes enabled most students to discover something they liked and wanted to carry on with into adulthood.”

I, for one, am still scarred by the trauma of PE at school. I remain allergic to any form of exercise. I’ve tried the gym, swimming, yoga, running in the park, and have even attempted a British Military Fitness session. But I can’t elicit the smallest amount of pleasure from any of them.

I’m convinced that I’d have been happier at school, and fitter now, if our games lessons had felt more like fun. Indeed, one of the paradoxes of my school days was that I was regularly reprimanded for attending lessons in tracksuit bottoms and a cotton shirt, but loathed every minute of physical activity.

In fact, the only time I ever enjoyed exercise at school was when they began to offer improbably progressive-sounding “jazz dancing” classes to the sixth form. To the strains of pop music, we laboured over moves that we believed might come in useful at the nightclubs we were just starting to enjoy. It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t scary and it wasn’t embarrassing.

Happily, the result of introducing these newfangled alternatives to the curriculum is a boost in pupils’ enthusiasm for exercise. In a world with ever-fewer playing fields, where physical activity is threatened by the allure of the internet, the TV and computer games, we should be delighted if a child can be bothered to perfect their karate kicks, not outraged that they’ll never know how to play cricket.