Being forced to do school sports

[Janey62]

Does anyone know the legal position on having to do school sports day?
My daughter is 8, and was very premature, as a result she is still tiny and not strong. She gets trounced in anything sporty by kids her age. Twice now she has come home from sporting events at school looking totally washed out and promptly vomited. Last week I wrote to the class teacher asking for her to be excused sports day as it was going to be 27 degrees and I knew it would happen again. Because she doesn't want to be last all the time she throws herself at it with such effort that she makes herself ill ( and still comes last). Anyway, the teacher told her that there wasn't anywhere shady to sit at the sports ground , so she may as well join in..... Of course the child feels obliged to do so, and subsequently fell over and broke her little finger- we were in A&E until 9pm that night!!!
As you can imagine I'm not very happy with the teacher, but in all other respects she is an excellent teacher.
Should she have complied with my letter and allowed my daughter to sit out?
Am I being unreasonable?

get a list of all the races she could take part in from the teacher then just pick say three for her to line up with and join in with - plonk yourself right by her (in with the kids not perched on the side with the parents) and show her that as your her mum you are more important than the school rules and her health and happiness are the most important things to you.
When she does a race and looses have a stash of gifts and medals 9you can get a whole pack from the £1 shop) and very publicly and loudly cheer and clap her and don a medal on her for effort.
Laugh off in a hearty "i'm just totally bonkers " way any comments from teachers/parents/other kids - keep on jolly mum mode all the way back to the car and home

This isn't serious is it?

"as your her mum you are more important than the school rules and her health and happiness are the most important things to you.
When she does a race and looses have a stash of gifts and medals 9you can get a whole pack from the £1 shop) and very publicly and loudly cheer and clap her and don a medal on her for effort."

This is the kind of mum who turns up at her pfb's job when they're in their 20s and berates the manager for making their little diddums work. Then ends up on the weirdo MIL threads competing with their DC's partners.

I always wondered where they came from. Now I know!

Get her checked out by a doctor, hopefully all will be well in which case you could try to build her strength, fitness and co ordination by getting her involved in physical activities in which her tiny size will be of benefit to her. Gymnastics would probably be the best because it builds strength, flexibility, co ordination and balance. When shes strong and co ordinated enough you can get her into a team sport to build her endurance, aerobic fitness and confidence, volleyball would be good because it doesn't involve physical contact with others, it is not nice to have someone twice your size knock you over!

Getting her fit and strong (presuming nothing is wrong with her) will benefit her health, give her physical ability to compete with hers and do wonders for her confidence, that should be your goal.

I think you should let the little girl decide what she wants to do. Maybe she might choose to take part in less races or maybe she might want to do them all.

"plonk yourself right by her (in with the kids not perched on the side with the parents) and show her that as your her mum you are more important than the school rules and her health and happiness are the most important things to you."

If I may use a somewhat overworked word, I think it would be horrendously entitled of a parent to assume that they are the only ones whose approval matters to an 8yo child. You can't stay the centre of a child's universe forever and by 8 they should be looking for more independence and a greater range of role models.

Couldn't agree more Cory. Well said.

skybluepearl - I think you're right - and I think that's what the teacher was doing, by the sound of it. "She can have a go if she wants" sounds like giving her the option to me.

I would get her checked out by the doctor, but would also suggest that the school could provide some shade during very hot weather. Our local school has a great sports day, (12 classes in the school), 10 events are arranged around in a large circuit. Two shaded water stations are set up and the classes rotate through all the activities. Not too intimidating as each class is only really watched by their own parents and a chance for a quiet sit down and a cold drink.

yeah, if there's no shade and no drinks that's not good practise.

a solution to that problem for all the kids wouldn't involve singling out OP's daughter as uniquely 'precious'.

There has to be shade and drinks. The school would bebfailing on safegurding if there wasn't.

I can not sit in the sun for long periods of time. Partly because even with factor 50 on I burn so quickly and partly because my body can not cope without a constant availability of water. We all have different tolerances for it - I find that mind is significantly less than most people and it can be prohibitive at times.

I've now got to the point where if I know I'm going to be outside for longer than an hour on the hottest days I have to wear clothes that are long sleeved and don't expose too much flesh, and naturally this means I have to drink even more water as I dehydrate even quicker. Sun stroke is a really big problem for me. On the occasions I've not taken precautions and have burnt, even close friends have been amazed by how quickly it happens and how much of a problem it is for me. Sunbathing is completely out of the question.

Some people have thought I've been ridiculous or over sensitive about it, until they have seen how quickly and badly it affects me.

Regardless of whether you daughter has another problem or not, I have to say that I find the fact that the school did not provide any shade, really bad purely from a health and safety point of view.

That said, I don't think that is a good enough reason to stop your daughter joining in until she has som other medical problem that prevents her. She should be going in.

Even with my sensitivity it never ever stopped me doing sports. She may need to extra cautious in between and learn to manage in it if she does have problems with the heat or sunshine. Its the lack of fluids and shade that are my problem, and not the heat and the exercise itself. Its about understanding how your body reacts in weather like that, and then adjusting for that rather than complete avoidance of the situation. You can not go through life and not deal with it at some point. If she is like me, you have your approach to dealing with it upside down and not actually tackling the real heart of the problem.

"Oh yes. Definitely. I remember that. It's always the parents', or even worse, the kids' fault for hating sport."

Or even you can't be bad at sports if you're in the top sets for everything else. You're just not trying hard enough so we'll continue to humiliate you until you do.

As I said further up if they did this with other subjects there would be an outcry. PE teachers in my experience are sick, sadistic bullies and to those who say spelling tests are the same to those who are not academic, when are spelling tests done in front of large crowds with the teacher encouraging the rest of the class to torment those who got them wrong??

thewordaccordingtome. "PE teachers in my experience are sick, sadistic, bullies encouraging the rest of the class to torment those who got them wrong"
Thankfully, your experience would appear to be in the minority, and has no actual bearing on the op's dd's experiences

Dear god theworld but you're not generalising at all are you ?

They do spelling tests in front of each other in class and your classmates often know what you get... what is the difference.

My son is 7 and he knows who is on what level in reading and who is better at certain things because you find out in class.

Projecting your own issues much?

I hated sports day. I matched games for almost all my schooldays.

My kids are divided - some love it, some hate it.

DD2 is teeny tiny and she still goes and tries her best. I'd never expect them to opt her out of it.

If she's small, she's small. Meh.

Is she your PFB?

A thread on here not so long ago demonstrated that I am not in the minority in that respect. I'm just not in favour of adults bullying children is all. I also said earlier that I did think the OP WBU because the broken finger was nothing to do with the child's size, I just suspect (maybe incorrectly, but hey what makes anyone else on this forum and more right or wrong than me) that this could be where the vomiting comes from i.e. a fear of abject humiliation or pushing herself physically to the point where she is sick in the hope that she won't have to face the humiliation if she tries harder.

And yes I also think the idea with the medals and the sun shade is loony. Competition does exist in life and children need to learn to deal with it - but not to the point where failure is THAT humiliating.