School and PE

[Gorja]

DD1 is year 8. She has a badly infected toe that she is on antibiotics for and looks like she may have to have the nail removed.
She was due to do PE today.
I wrote a note this morning explaining she could do PE and set off happily to work. When I got Hime she told me she had given her teacher the nite and been told she had to do PE as it would be ok as it was just handball.
She had been made to wear spare PE kit as I hadn't sent hers with her - as I had written a note so didn't expect her to be doing PE.
She had to wear trainers that were too small for her as that is all they had.
This evening she is in a huge amount of pain and very tearful.
Would I be unreasonable to contact the school and tell them they are not to make her do PE if she has a note?
I do understand that some kids avoid PE and I do know she's not a huge fan of it and probably doesn't try very hard in it.
But surely if as a parent I write a note as she is in pain the school should respect my judgement and not make her participate?
She's my eldest so not sure if I'm over reacting but she really is in a lot of pain tonight which she wouldn't be had she not had to do PE.

I had an infected toenail OP and it was so painful to even walk on, there is no way I could do PE. Of course she should be allowed to sit out with a note from a parent, missing PE is really no big deal.

CheeseandGherkins: The only authority any teacher has is that delegated to them by the school and its policies. As a teacher it is my role to exercise that authority. I don't apologise for that and, as far as I am concerned, parents who expect me to are welcome to educate their kids themselves, elsewhere.

Yep God complex!
There is a huge difference between not doing things we don't like and being able to say we are unfit for certain activities.
PE is a part of the curriculum. Yes. I was a teacher for many years. Would I insist on a student writing with broken fingers because it's part of the curriculum? Bonkers reasoning.
And yep PE teacher who doesn't want to admit it!

Wolfiefan: You really are quite funny. I'm not a closet PE teacher

I don't have a God complex either. It's just the reality that schools don't operate like that, with the students able to opt in and out of lessons. With good reason, yes, but it is at the discretion of the school, working with parents, not unilaterally up to the parents to say the child isn't doing X today.

Anyway, it is my bed time. Thanks for robust discussion.

Glad I'm funny. Since when has "don't be such a twat. We all think you're wrong" been robust discussion! OP I hope your robust discussion goes better than this one and Trifle isn't the teacher of which you speak!

I'm trying to work out why a child who is unfit to do PE should be made to change into a (redundant) PE kit. Whatever for?

How is it necessary to wear PE kit to keep score? In any case, wouldn't it be more productive to allow the child to read a book instead?

I also think PE in schools requires a major overhaul if so many children loathe it with such a passion that teachers are unable to allow genuinely injured or sick children to sit it out in case it encourages the others. Suggests poor teaching, and/or a curriculum that is not fit for purpose.

Trifle you are coming over as a tad up yourself.

Wolverbampton "i have sympathy for PE teachers because they do deal with a lot of wimps and liars"

From persons experience, that sort of attitude can do a lot of damage, a few less pe teachers thinking in that manner would make a huge difference.

Trifleorbust - how do you (as in a teacher, not necessarily you personally) know what qualifies as 'to the best of their ability' under any given circumstances?

A teacher cannot possibly know to what degree a child is inhibited by any given illness or injury.

Trifle by your reasoning, any student should do PE and if they can't do PE they shouldn't be in school.

If a parent sends a letter in to excuse their child from an activity, for whatever reason, then the parent should have reasonable expectation that the request in the note is honored. If the teacher has an issue with the parent's request, they need to take that up with the parent, not force the student to participate regardless, potentially doing harm to said child in the process.

It's no different from when I was at school and I broke my (very strong, complex px) glasses and it would be a couple of days before they could get me my new ones. My mother wrote a note asking that all my teachers allow me to sit front and centre in the classroom so I could see the board (regardless of where I usually sat in their class seating plan); that I be excused from PE full stop, as without my glasses I get dizzy and have no real depth perception; and if at any time during the day I started to suffer from headaches, I should be excused to the office to call home. The school had no problem making the adjustments for those few days and once my new glasses arrived everything went back to normal proceedings.

By your reckoning, I should have spent those few days at home, or got a note from my doctor, since I couldn't fully participate in every class ... despite being perfectly fit and well in every other way than I couldn't see properly. If I'd have suggested that both my parents and teachers would have laughed me all the way back to my classroom!

Being fit for school does not mean you are fit to participate in every facet of the school day and as a fellow teacher I can't understand how any teacher would have that expectation.

The child in this case should have requested to sit out but she should have taken in her kit in case the teacher felt she should participate.
Teachers are absolutely not qualified to decide that a child is fit to participate when the parent has said that an injury means they cannot.
Medical evidence is not required - Doctors do not have the time to deal with such matters and parents are allowed to make medical decisions for their children.

If a teacher thinks that the child or parent is swinging the lead, then they need to deal with that after the lesson - they should never over-rule a parent over this kind of decision. It doesn't compare to other lessons or even homework.

I had a similar situation when I excused my DS from PE due to an injury. Knowing that his PE teacher was an arse, I had told my DS that if the teacher questioned it, to tell him that I had made it clear that he wasn't allowed to do it and to contact me is he had any concerns. The teacher complained, but let it go when my DS told him to contact me. (I had made it clear in the note to contact me if he had any questions)

estelle yes that's what i asked!
What is the point?
We never had to being our kit into school. Pupils would read, to homework or just observe the game.

I really hope some of the 'shit excuses' mentioned weren't actually headaches and bad periods
As these are not bad excuses.

I also wanted to know how a teacher could force a pupil to take part if they had a note?

kali and MyWineTime I agree with you both.

I am concerned about Trifle's comments about 'shit excuses'. A teacher cannot possibly know how any individual child is affected by their individual ailment, and should not seek to flex their muscles in over-riding the parents in this way. Any genuine concern that a pupil is regularly swinging the lead should be raised with the parents outside of the actual lesson. Teachers should not be seeing it as a pissing contest they are hellbent on winning.

melj1213 yes you should have stayed home
I suffer with migraines and bad headaches. I'd be fine going in but throw up or pass out if i had to do any physical Activity.

I was signed off PE when i sprained my ankle. Should i have stayed off school for two days just because i couldn't do PE?

kali I wouldn't let my DC take kit in if I had given a sick note for them to be excused PE, as it gives the teacher the impression you are half-expecting to be over-ruled.

Trifleorbust "There is nothing wrong with calling things what they are - lots of excuses are shit. That doesn't mean I lack compassion when the excuse is reasonable."

So how do you decide which are shit and which are reasonable?

I spend years putting up with teachers who wouldn't believe there was anything wrong with me, who made me feel useless and believed I was lying about all of my health problems and this has done me serious, long term damage. That used to make me sad.

Since then, both I and my children have been diagnosed with a serious genetic condition. Perhaps if people actually HAD compassion back then, rather than judging me and my "shit excuses", they would've worked out what was wrong with me and further damage would have been prevented- instead of systemically making my life worse.

When it started happening to my daughter instead of making me mad, it made me utterly effing fuming! She's only at primary school, but even AFTER diagnosis, they still made her feel like a worthless attention seeker and I can tell you, I removed her from that school damn quick!

She is now thriving at a school that actually does have compassion rather than deciding whether they think someone deserves it or not.

kali My parents actually weren't against me staying home if I wanted to because I could be a liability getting around without my glasses especially if I was feeling tired ... but I was too busy thinking about all the work and teenage gossip I'd have to catch up on if I just stayed home and actually insisted on going to school ... my parents weren't going to object if it meant them not having to arrange someone to supervise me at home!

Parents can't send in a note excusing their child from any other aspect of school

Surely, Trifle, you can see the difference between sending in a note excusing a child from maths and excusing the child from PE? There are few if any illnesses or injuries which would allow a child to go into school but make them unable to do maths; that cannot be said to apply to PE. Parents can certainly choose to withdraw their child from RE lessons and religious assemblies, and equally can excuse their children from things like cookery lessons where the child is allergic to the ingredients.

Sure, if a pupil or their parents are persistently swinging the lead, that needs to be dealt with, but it is ridiculous to demand doctors' notes for every child. Other schools manage without. If your school wants notes, I hope they pay for them.

You sound like the teacher who dismissed as a shit excuse my note that my daughter should not do PE due to a foot injury. Bit of a shame, really, as that one lesson ended up seriously exacerbating the foot injury so that she was off school for a week for an operation and related treatment, and off PE for considerably longer.

I had hoped that teachers with Trifle's attitude no longer existed. They made my life miserable as a child.
I hope your DD's toe recovers soon OP. Not so sure her self confidence re PE will have been improved by this episode

Benedikte2 me too, sadly not as we found out with my daughter 😢

Crikey I had an infected toe when DS1 was ten weeks old. They gave me gas and air when they lanced it and I can tell you now the pain was right up there with a 17 hour drip-induced labour with no epidural

I couldn't even wear shoes and worshipped at the temple of Birkenstock for many weeks.

I'd be fuming!

Trifle, clearly you think something like an infected toe is a trivial problem.

You have obviously never had one or I can guarantee you that your tone would be very different.

You are virtually saying that well enough to be in school is well enough to do PE and you cannot see that it is different from other lessons which are more classroom based??

I had a broken arm earlier this year. I was very quickly well enough to be back in the office working, but not doing much in the way of lifting etc. Had I been a school child I would have been OK in the classroom but not in PE for some weeks, if then (still ongoing problems months later).

You really do sound very unempathetic and smug.

After I took in a note excusing me from swimming a teacher pulled me aside and made me rank the bodies of the girls in my class from thinnest to fattest. Pointed out that I wasn't at the top and threatened me with expulsion if I didn't swim. 20years later I am still scarred by that and eating disorder is still going strong. Teachers can be horrible bullying cunts, especially pe teachers.

The rule at my dc's school.is they have to take kit in even with a note from parents. Maybe your school has the same rule.

Topseyt: And you clearly haven't read my comments properly. If the OP's daughter was unable to fully take part, that is understandable and I would expect the teacher to be understanding. But I would expect the student to bring kit, get changed and participate to the level she was capable of. As I've said several times, that may involve doing a non-physical part of PE or it may (as the teacher asked) involve doing something where she didn't need to use her feet. If she had followed the rules and taken in her trainers she wouldn't have had to borrow kit. It is regrettable that she came home in pain but that's why the rules are there, so she doesn't have to borrow kit.