Is there a better solution to this? DD and school residential

[Gansevoortgirl67]

DD10 is very tall for her age. She's found her height upsetting for years, but it's gotten much worse over the last few months or so. She's the tallest in her year group by quite a way and has been for a while. She was taller than her teacher by the end of last year and is taller than her new teacher she'll start with in September, which she finds particularly difficult. She's often mistaken for much older than her actual age. Her size is often pointed out when she's with her age group. She's not overweight, but other kids in her year group haven't started hitting puberty yet as far as I'm aware. So she does look 'bigger.' Her friends all seem to be tiny for their age which isn't helping. She is very, very aware of how her body compares to her peer group. I was the same at her age and it really affected me as I got older, which I don't want for her.

Her year group are doing a residential week in October. It's one of the adventure day type franchises, so climbing, abseiling, raft building, trampoline type games etc.They did a weekend trip to a different place owned by the same franchise before they finished for summer where most of the activities were done in pairs and they got to pick their partners. On that trip, DD was told by the teachers on the trip that she couldn't partner with the other kids for the pair activities because she was so much bigger than them and might end up hurting them on the equipment. She was partnered off with different teachers for the pairs activities on day 1. On day 2 she was given the option of partnering with a teacher or sitting out the activities with another group that had already done them, after she said she was upset she couldn't go on with her friends. She cried her eyes out when she was picked up at the end that she was fat, she hates her body, she just wants to be small like her friends.

She's been bringing up the October residential on and off all summer break. She doesn't want to go because she felt so uncomfortable last time. I've told her she doesn't have to go if she doesn't want to, but she's afraid of missing out if she doesn't go, or being made fun of for not wanting to be away from home for four nights. She's missed out on activity weekends for extra curriculars before because they fell on her dad's weekends, which is a whole separate thread. But her worry that she'll feel left out the week after the trip is valid to her.

I feel there has to be a better solution than she sucks it up or I just pull her out the trip, but I can't work out what it might be.

Commenting as a teacher.
I've taken many kids away and had one child with Marfan Syndrome who was incredibly tall and much bigger than her peers. This was never an issue in any activity!
The school are being hugely I uninclusive and are detrimentally damaging your child's mental health.
Please, please fight this every step of the way. Your daughter needs you to do this for her.

That's useful to know @Singleandproud @Luckypoppy thank you. That certainly fits with what the center is saying over what her school is saying.

Her dad's weighed her today apparently and she's slightly heavier than I thought. She's a little over 5"7 but she's just into the overweight centile for 5"8. Although I'm still doubtful she's really the heaviest in her year group, she's just definitely the tallest. And makes me more convinced her school's line on this is damaging for her to be completely honest. I don't want her to feel humiliated in front of her classmates.

They are doing hiking, kayaking, shelter building activities too as far as I know, but it does sound as though there's a lot of high ropes/obstacle course stuff.

Are there any tall boys she's quite friendly with that she could be partnered with?

Op my dd is 5ft 6 and just finished year 6, she's always been one of the tallest girls for her age at school and has recently done a residential. She's not skinny or overweight she's just average weight but her frame, bones, head etc are noticeably larger than most girls her age, just like I was when I was a kid (I used to get called big boned). There are a couple of other girls in the year who are her height, and 2 who are taller, I'd say 5.7-5.8. There are a few girls who are slightly shorter than dd about 5.4-5.5, one is very overweight due to a health condition and all of them appear to be going through puberty. Not one of them was made to pair up with a teacher on the residential, they could pair up to do all the activities with any other child they liked. I'd phone the activity centre and speak to someone directly about this, they're the professionals who work there. Unless they say your dd could indeed injure another child due to her height and a perceived weight difference (plus provide details on how / why it could happen), I'd complain to the school about your dd being singled out like this by the teachers, it just sounds ridiculous how they've treated her and very cruel.

"she was told in front of the group she couldn't do those activities with one of the other kids in the group because she would be too heavy and might hurt them."

This just gets worse. It is completely normal for these places to run mixed age groups over the summer hols, eg Y3s with Y6s, and ours does youth club camps with mixed age 8-15s, including crate stacking.

My point re additional needs was that if it's safe for a Y3 to be partnered with an adult then of course a larger Y6 is safe with a smaller Y6. Like PP says, they are not doing judo.

I've taken many y6 on residentials (also guess that's aeroball so prob to the same company) and never paired them up. I feel so sorry for your daughter. It's shocking that school can say that. I'd be asking for a meeting with the teacher in charge of the trip alongside a member of slt.

I feel like a completely shit mom for not pushing harder when it happened last time or realising she is actually overweight Although I don't think she was on her last residential, I think it's crept up over summer. She's somewhere between the 91st and 94th centile depending on her height which I don't think is too awful, but still. But her current weight aside she is built more like the teachers than she is the other kids so she's always going to look bigger until they catch her up.

She's much taller than the boys in her year leccy. That seems to be a huge issue for her, she thinks she's somehow less feminine because she's tall. All the female teachers who work with the older years at her school seem to be tiny 5"2 waifs.

Op is she actually overweight or are you basising that one some stupid kids BMI thing that compares against same aged kids, shes so tall I'd plug her weight and height into an adult checker.

The other kids aren't 'so small' for not being adult sized while in primary school. They're all normal (OP child included) but 5'7 is very tall for 10. Weird comment.

And again being 5'2 and slim is not a waif. The average height in the UK for a woman is 5'4! Her teachers are normal sized (as is she).

Teach her about how people are all made differently

I've used the NHS one but it wants her age so as soon as I put that in it gives me a centile and tells me she's overweight. A different kids BMI calculator says her BMI is just into the overweight category if I round her height up. Her dad has weighed her today, I was going off her weight last time I weighed her. He thinks her clothes at his are looking tighter around the belly

I've done the bmi saying she's 18, lets be honest she has an adult height bmi 21, so she can't really be overweight.

The kids ones don't seem to take into account a kids height.

Faffing with the NHS calculator she'd be 'normal' if she was 12 with those height and weight. But overweight at 11 & 10.

Seriously how does that make any sense. 136 is either too heavy for 5ft 7 or it's not or am I missing something?

Her dad says she's 138 which sounds like a big increase to me, she was 134 when I last knew her weight around May. Although that probably wouldn't make a huge difference to BMI? I can't work out why it would be overweight at 10 but not at the same height at 12 either. I feel awful for mentioning it to her dad now,.

This is rubbish! I was the kid with the pudgy (ok she was all out fat) best friend. I was a slightly chubby short girl! We did everything together. Her weight was only brought up as a issue for us being partners for activities ONCE during weight lifting (mostly because of her size she could bench press WAY more than I could lift).

You need to ask the school for their risk assessment, in writing.

Take no shit, if they do not have one then they are discriminating against her for height. I'm not sure which bit of legislation but it is not a good look for them.

I did Ju Jitsu in my teens and we were partnered up with who ever was the same grade as you, different heights and weights and it could make a difference.

Give your daughter a hug, I'm 5ft 0 so have to ask people taller than me to get things in supermarkets, well I did when I still went to supermarkets. She might find herself in demand.

When I went to high school there was one girl who was head and shoulders taller than us, but by the end she was just average, most girls caught her up, I didn't.

It might be that over summer a few others will have had a growth spurt.

If you are not getting solutions from the school maybe put a complaint in? Take it to board of governors /local authority/ofsted?

There were quite a few kids of that height in DDs class (just finished Yr6) It really isn't that unusual for a girl to be 5ft7. DDs best friend is head and shoulders above her. A lot them look like young women rather than girls.

According to statistics, about 40% of Yr6s are overweight or obese. The school is being very shortsighted if they think she's the only larger child.

The only thing I can think of and it's purely my guess is the weight calculator for kids expects a 12 yo will have broadened out, developed hips and boobs more than a 10yo of the same height.

But ultimately you know what your DD looks like, being honest with yourself, is she fit or is she carrying more weight than she should be.
If she is overweight then I think I'd try and manage her diet, and encourage more exercise without making a big thing about it. The last thing you want to do is make her conscious of her weight as well as her height.

My niece is 11, nearly 12 and got
"the letter" when they weighed her at school a couple of years ago

She is also a very talented at many sports.

She went through puberty fairly early, has a Dad who is tall and broad and also very talented at a particular sport.

My son went through early puberty (kick started by T1 Diabetes). Some of his friends have caught up but by the start of year 7, I was shocked at how little and childlike nearly all of his peers were.

In contrast, my middle child is nearly yr 8 and seems to have forgotten to grow

It is really, really hard for girls who develop earlier. I think the school are reacting inappropriately to a risk assessment. They have forgotten how it would feel to be told you may hurt your friends with your height and weight.

They risk assessed for my T1 child in year 6 and told me it was best he got picked up every evening. I eventually got his Diabetes Nurse to visit and remind the school that they needed to find solutions rather than exclude my son for a 'safer' life (for them).

Good luck, hope you can find a solution which helps dd enjoy this experience (as she has a right to).

I wouldn’t fret too much about her BMI. My DS’s is similar but if I add his height and weight in as though he were an adult, his BMI is the lower end of healthy. It’s just because she’s big for her age, not her height which is what matters really. She’s my height so I know she’s the lower end of healthy BMI, if she were 8 years older this would be the case.

Anywaaaay… The schools policy sounds a little unfair to me. My DD is tall but slim and she had to share a raft with a much bigger (not taller) girl on their residential. The raft tipped and they both fell in the water which DD was not pleased about but there you go, it’s character building . I’d imagine there will be at least one child a similar weight to your DD, even if no one is as tall.

She definitely has hips and boobs. I imagine not as much as she will have at 12, but more than I think normal for her age. Her dad thinks she was fine before summer, carrying too much weight on her belly now. I'm not sure I agree with that but he's not seen her for a few weeks before this weekend, so he's probably better to judge than me. Grown up DSD who has just collected her thinks her dad is talking rubbish, but I think she'd tell me that anyway.

I know it's not about that but even if she is slightly overweight at the moment, there's no way she's the most overweight in her year group by height.

As a Y6 teacher (and Brownie leader)and organiser of many residential trips, at many different venues and providers we have never been asked to organise children according to height and or weight. They wouldn't ask adults to sort themselves according to weight/height and shouldn't pupils.
The school are wrong and this sounds like them being over cautious rather than centre policy. In fact staff often do these activities with children themselves. I am 5'10 and have been on climbing, 3G swing etc with the smallest children. There is sometimes an age restriction - normally 8 - but that is it. Safety is always paramount but this seems over the top. I hope common sense prevails your daughter can participate as an equal with her peers - which is what these trips are for.

In the school's defence they are making appropriate adjustments to allow op dd to take part by pairing her with a teacher. However, it does seem unnecessary. The OP needs it in writing from the centre that her dd's height and weight isn't an issue for partnered work with her class and then they have no leg to stand on.

That's exactly it Redhelen. Their argument is they have made the activity inclusive. They've just done it at the expense of DD's mental state. As far as they're concerned, there's no issue.