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.

This was meant to teach them the life lesson of being properly prepared - and it was an excellent lesson to learn.
But that's not being properly prepared is it! If the child is not doing PE, then carrying a PE kit around is pointless. You don't properly prepare yourself by taking equipment for lessons you are not having. If I got a message to say that the cello teacher wasn't in, then I wouldn't take my cello to school in order to show I was "properly prepared"
The child should never have been told to change shoes - not into her own and certainly not into a pair that didn't fit!

Thankspanx "Trifle I do see your point about weekly notes excusing kids due to headaches, tummy aches etc but you can't seriously be saying that the teacher got this one right?"

But headaches, tummy aches etc can still be perfectly reasonable, like I say, if anyone had cared enough to actually consider WHY I was suffering all these things instead of pronouncing them to be "shit" excuses and making me out to be a liar, I wouldn't be in the situation I am now.

Creamycrackers my condition is Ehlers Danlos, I'm so glad you've found at least one supportive teacher, I really hoped the nasty ones didn't exist anymore.

Katy "necessary) or have bare feet / socks.
If a parent sends a note in then the child should be excused, unless it's happened a lot (in which case the child is excused a final time but then the parents spoken to about it) or if they think the note has been forged (ring the parent to check - if necessary excusing the child but clobbering them with a punishment afterwards if the note was dodgy)- that's exactly what I thought.

This sort of attitude in many pe teachers damaged kids self esteem, contributes to bullying, makes injuries and illnesses worse and has serious, life long effects on kids. It's not a game.

I'm sorry you had a rough time at school amammabear.

I agree, it is important for teachers to consider repeat excuse notes may be justified.

I think making students who have notes and aren't doing PE change into their kit is ridiculous. It's perfectly possible to referee/keep score while wearing school uniform, if the student is able to participate to that extent.

This is especially true if the PE kit itself isn't fit for purpose: I remember regularly having to change into a T-shirt and little gym skirt when I had my arm in plaster, and stand for an hour on a pitch in the freezing cold. Bad enough when you're running about playing sport, horrendous when standing on the sidelines! But at least I looked like everyone else, which I guess was more important than being comfortable

School did teach me the life lesson that I didn't want to work in a job where someone else could tell me exactly what to wear despite the weather or where petty rules meant more than common sense.

Having a little chuckle to myself at the idea that lugging a redundant PE kit to school when you aren't going to be doing PE is an 'important life lesson' in being prepared.

I suppose in a sense it is: it's an important lesson to be prepared that wherever you go in life there are, unfortunately, twats who like to dictate ridiculous, unproductive and pointless actions to others, in order to make themselves feel important and because they have no regard for others. I guess that will stand children in good stead for working in much of the corporate world.

Good point Estelle I hadn't thought of that angle but you're right. I left the corporate world because of power tripping twats but was lucky enough to have good teachers. If I'd been in the habit of sucking it up from my school days I might have stuck it out and been miserable

YANBU and I'm surprised by some of the responses.

I'm not a PE teacher but one of my subjects is Dance so I come up against some of the same issues.

Our school has a full time qualified nurse and even she can't over rule a parent's note. If a parents says no games/dance/swimming etc then that's that. Even if we (and the fully qualified nurse) can see them tearing around at lunchtime playing football and obviously perfectly healthy. What the parent says goes. And no, no medical evidence required.

Our nurse can sign children off games on her own authority (obviously) but she can't put them back on. Repeat malingers would be called/emailed to discuss the situation but still can't be forced. Having said that, the more common problem if for children or parents to insist they're ok when they aren't and have to be taken off games by the nurse. Most of the children love sport and we have it daily.

But then we're a private school - doing what the fee paying parent asks for kind of goes with the territory (however ridiculous it might be! )

Pretty obvious that Trifle is not a GP or she would have thought twice about this ridiculous idea that they have the spare time to write a medical note for every infected toe/sprained ankle/bout of flu/tummy bug contracted by any child in their area. As if the NHS wasn't struggling enough as it is.

Also Trifle, do you know how much GP's charge for a child's sick note?

Trifleorbust Tue 29-Nov-16 08:50:59
"ThanksSpanx: If the child is so ill that getting changed to keep score or 0
move some wickets around is going to put them at risk, they shouldn't be at school or should be removed from the lesson by medical"

But in the case of a broken leg or anything else that takes time to heal, not to mention a chronic condition, that would put the child way under the attendance targets and ime result in a letter from the school threatening legal action. Parents can't win, can they?

And fwiw my child was put at risk by teachers who seemed unable to understand the implications of the letters from the hospital or my explanations: the consultant was very indignant about it.

PE teachers need to get over themselves. Don't waste your time on kids who don't want to do it. All you will do is put them off sport even more, fail to give those kids who do like the subject the attention they need, put everyone's backs out and perpetuate the stereotype of the evil PE teacher.

And I haven't said for a moment that PE doesn't have the potential to exacerbate an injury or that a reasonable approach shouldn't be taken by the teacher.

But what you have done, Trifle, is to make a direct comparison between PE and other subjects, and suggested that because a parent can't send a note that their child should be kept off something like Maths then they shouldn't be able to do so to get them off PE. Which brings me back to the fact that there is that obvious difference between maths and PE, namely that you are highly unlikely to exacerbate any illness or injury by making someone do maths, which obviously cannot be said of PE.