Should all children be treated equally in PE lessons?

[TheLuckyMrsPine]

My daughter age 9 is always sub at matches. Weirdly she always used to be good at sport but after being sub with 1 other continuously has dropped behind the others. Bit annoying as matches take up all Wednesday afternoons. So as usual today she played for 10 mins then sat watching. Fair enough though though they want to win.

However, they do training/ PE on 3 other days and she also has to “sub” in these practice games. I spoke with the teacher who said that the other girls don’t like certain positions so not always possible to rotate players

I understand in matches —although don’t like it and want to moan— but shouldn’t she be getting equal PE time? Independent school if that makes a difference?

Surely it’s like those weak at maths just watching stronger students do the work?

I would be very unhappy with this.

P.E. is part of the curriculum and important exercise. Your DD is missing out.

Plus she is only 9, P.E. should still be about learning skills and taking part at that age. The school sounds like it is overly invested in match results. Is it generally a hot house environment? I can (just about) understand the matches but during P.E. Lessons she should be participating fully.

She should be getting equal PE time. Write a letter of complaint or make an appointment about it. This sort of thing dents confidence! Other girls don't like certain positions indeed! What a crock!

Thank you - can never decide if I am being precious or not, she is my youngest and can be quite sensitive.... wonder where she gets that from

It really is killing her self esteem. She is never going to be a world class player but with no PE time she is just missing out.

The school doesn’t particularly hot house and actually they lose all the girls sports matches anyway

Yes it sounds like the teacher isn't very aware or that she's blatantly favouring some children over others. Definitely speak up. It feels uncomfortable but you have to advocate for your child. You've already spoken to the teacher, not got any change, so go higher up.

This is essentially the same as an art teacher refusing to allow the less able pupils to have access to the same art materials as the better pupils.

That sounds like shitty teacher who goes in for favouritism.

Yes, they might have a A team, who get extra training and more fixtures.

But he games department should, as one of its most basic functions, be providing games and PE for every single pupil
So even those not in the team, or only occasionally subbing in it, get a good and properly coached session at their standard.

I would really not be happy with a substandard department such as you describe.

Was going to half defend the school from the title alone thinking it was just going to be just about matches against other schools but that is not on at all given that it’s every single match and practice too. The teacher sounds weak and I’d question further why the teacher is not able to swap positions around to make it fair to all pupils, given as they are the teacher.

Private school?

I have raised it again and said I am not satisfied with their answer.
What has really peeved me is that they say she needs to get better to not be sub, which is a fair statement, but have offered no solutions on how to do this, any encouragement or even any equal practice/ training in all the PE sessions.

To top it all they said they didn’t notice she didn’t get any practice in PE earlier this week as were dealing with a distressed child at the time. DD says the girl was crying because she didn’t want to be sub. It seems like lots of the girls do this so easier if my DD and one of the others are always subs as they do not make a fuss.

I have asked that in matches she can take along a book, as if she will be sat for several hours every Wednesday watching other children she should at least have something productive to do.

Thanks everyone who has responded, sometimes it’s hard to know whether to say something or not as worry saying something will impact my DD and male it worse

Independent school if that makes a difference?
Probably does, yes. DSDs independent school didn’t even pretend to wanted to have anyone who wasn’t excellent in sport anywhere near their teams. They had the A team, B team and, well they didn’t have a C team, everyone else got to do ‘card making’.
Not all independent schools are like that though, my friend is a PE teacher at another local independent where everyone who wants a game, gets a game. They have A,B,C and D teams and try to match teams accordingly but find it increasingly difficult as other independents don’t and she refuses to have the girls matched against a team that are going to thrash them every time as it’s too demoralising. She’s getting more games from local grammars and sports specialist comps as they seem to have a similar attitude to every one getting a game. If this is your particular school’s ‘ethos’ with sport , I doubt anything you say will make a blind bit of difference to them tbh.