Or is this PE teacher unreasonable about periods

[BigSandyBalls2015]

DD(15) is doing GCSE PE. Part of this involves 'personal survival' which takes place in local swimming pool.

The school obv need to book this, can't just turn up, but DD queried what would happen if some of the girls had their period at the time. PE teacher (female) replied that they'd obviously have to use a tampon, they can't miss it, can't arrange another day. A few girls told her they didn't use/get on with tampons and she got annoyed saying they'd have to get on with it on the day as no other option.

BlankTVscreen: Well clearly I am unable to convince you of the unreasonableness of the plan! You are right: in the context of the other shocking failings of our education system this would not be the first thing I would change. Nevertheless, I think you are guilty of some very wishful 'where there's a will there's a way' thinking.

Italiangreyhound: Being female and menstruating isn't a problem...unless you want to take swimming for GCSE and you can't get in a pool once a month for up to a week because you can't use tampons. Then it is a problem. This is not prejudice but reality. However normal it is, it causes issues for the girl and for the school - why would I pretend otherwise? If there is a workable solution you go with that. If not, it's not acceptable to say the school 'has' to solve the issue. They are not magicians.

Or do netball instead. Clearly swimming is too much ag.

GCSE PE specs have extensive work-arounds to allow those with disabilities to participate.

I have however never seen one for swimming that covers 'cannot enter water'

She is being very unreasonable

Trifleorbust "However normal it is, it causes issues for the girl and for the school - why would I pretend otherwise?"

I am not sure I have suggested you are pretending otherwise.

"If there is a workable solution you go with that."

I believe a workable solution has been suggested multiple times, that of two dates two weeks apart. I've also suggested working with other schools so the dates for exams would be that some children could use a different school and a different pool to take an exam in the unlikely situation where they missed their own school date.

Other children may well be ill and miss one date and I would be tempted to get as many kids in on the first date as possible.

"If not, it's not acceptable to say the school 'has' to solve the issue. They are not magicians."

I am so very aware that schools are not magicians. My daughter's shocking primary education has never make me think schools could perform magic!

BigSandyBalls2015 as the OP has any of this helped you?

Really if we started from a position of how could we include girls in everything, without assuming they will find out their own solutions that suit us and do not suit them, then we would make a lot faster headway.

This might involve:

Acknowledging females aged 12 to 51 (on average) will bleed once a month for a number of days. This is not a problem. It is normal and a biological reality. But it will throw up issues for the girls which mean working around any issues. If the girls were not bleeding it would most likely mean they were pregnant, underweight or ill.

Acknowledging that girls should be able to do all activities and sports at school

Acknowledging that girls may not wish to/may not be able to use tampons, this may mean girls making up time in the pool at another suitable time or doing suitable exercises to exercise their muscles/plan swimming techniques or whatever would help them to do their sport when not affected by their period

Never asking a girls parent to provide a letter as to why she cannot swim or cannot use a tampon, it should be well known by now by any PE Teacher all the reasons why this may be the case

Not assuming girls will use their periods to get out of sport (and recognizing if they do this it is themselves that they are cheating - how the hell does it affect anyone else if girls duck out of sports!)

Celebrating that we can all win if we remove any barriers to others winning (assuming we do not hurt others by doing this), that our 'can do' attitude can permeate other areas of our work and lives

I honestly do not think that this issue of very heavy periods and 'non-wellness' (really cannot think of another word for it) around menstruation is not just an issue that affects swimming. I am sure it can affects other areas of sports and also other areas of study.

The fact girls have been left to get on with it for so long is because the whole education system is set up around a 'male' model of what a student is. And this may be because for many centuries, and even in places today, educating girls was not on the agenda!

The exam board would need to change the specs for either a date outside the specified period or to change the rules on consortia.

That is nit something an individual school can just do.

meditrina

"The exam board would need to change the specs for either a date outside the specified period or to change the rules on consortia."

That is presumably something the exam board could just do.

Why would the exam board not want to do that to make sports better for girls?

I don't know.

Has anyone asked them?

Or, as pp mentioned, engaged the sport governing body in making all competitions available regardless of choice of sanpro?

Bowing out of this thread now. It really has gone beyond the rational when people are suggesting a girl should never be asked for a note to excuse her from PE

I don't have periods anymore because I am on depo, but when I do they last for ten days minimum and for 7 days out of the ten I, like some, others bleed horrendously. For example one time I had a maxi tampon and a night pad and bled through both and my jeans all over the chair in one hour. I just needed to mainly stay at home or close to home when I had periods or would have to take a pack of night towels a day to school to cope.

I couldn't use tampons at 15 either.

I also can't bathe during these days as the water turns bright red and contains massive bigger than a £2 coin and about 0.5-1cm thick clots floating in it.

We never did swimming at school, I am grateful really.

If I had to save someone or I fell in the water accidentally I would just bleed everywhere and that would be the least of my concerns in the circumstances.

It is hereditary, my mum is the same. I also bled heavily after the DC. 1 full month with DC1, 3 months with DC2 and 6 full months with the DTs.

I am just a bleeder. There is nothing I can do about it unless I use depo etc

Not read whole thread.

This reminds me a bit of things I've read about exams recently - how clearly 3 hour sittings can be much more problematic for girls with periods especially heavy periods than boys. Of course when exams were invented they were for boys so that was fine. This reminds me a bit of that. The world, our part anyway, is constructed in a certain way that essentially was designed by men for men. Women and girls make up 1/2 the population but we weren't consulted as we weren't in those roles / expected or allowed to do those things / and the outside was the sphere of men. When women and girls have demanded access to "male" things they have had to fit in with the existing structure and do their best with it.

You can still see this approach in loads of ways, that they are designed brilliantly for an average height unencumbered male, but anyone who is a shortish woman, wheelchair user, or with a pushchair / multiple children in tow they just don't work so well at all. This is what all this "inclusiveness" stuff is about with town centres and things now trying to think of everybody's needs when they redesign.

Anyway that's a bit of a side-track. Fact is that girls have periods and always have. Fact is that schools were not set up with girls and especially their menstrual concerns in mind. The commenters who are saying that the teenage girls should "man up" which is essentially what those comments boil down to, are falling into the idea that women and girls, if they want to get on in the world, must fit in with a world that was not designed to fit them, or suffer the consequences.

The school has a nightmare of admin here but to say that girls aged 15 MUST insert things into their vaginas that they don't want to / are scared to - that's just a big no from me. There has to be a way to deal with this because at a national level and if we want girls to be more involved in sport, this will impact more and more and more girls, and it's every school, every years. So maybe the exam boards and schools need to have a starting point of assuming 50% female take-up and what inclusion looks like, rather than keeping things as they are and anyone who doesn't "fit" properly - even if the not fitting is something 50% of the population share - is discouraged from taking it up / pushed out etc. We know that sports participation for girls in UK is low - this sort of thing is part of the reason.

PE teacher being ridiculous. I could never use tampons, just wouldn't go in. Only discovered why later on in life and required surgery to put right.

Also, at 15 I would rather have been considered a troublemaker than ever in a million years tell any teacher about my horrific periods.

And in fact I flatly refused to do any of the mandatory PE for years 10 and 11 and was labelled that way because of the communal changing and showers and PE teachers towel and shower checks and my horrendous periods that I was too humiliated and embarrassed about.

If we had our period on in pe we were excusing showering

So the pe teacher would take registration and you had to say "yes period"

I rarely showered...

Offred, tell me with this past experience would you or did you do anything "different" for your daughter?
Ask more questions about her menses, seek medical attention etc?

I am in my twenties and much as I've tried I cannot use tampons. It's probably hard for people who use them without issue to understand.

OCR which is one of the examining boards, accept DVD evidence. Swimming is an activity that can be done Off-site. Not all off-site locations allow moderators onto their premises. And yes, along with a number of other activities can be filmed in this way. This is how my dd's school got round this situation years ago, fuck knows what they said to OCR to have some moderated and others filmed, but it was done. And after checking the criteria, DVD evidence can still be used as it's an off-site activity.

Yes there are workaround if the school/department think outside the box. Many have said 'oh do you know how hard it is to get pool times, they will be booked for years?" That is the biggest load of bollocks to use as an excuse.
From spouting that crap you are implying the only pool time the school has is on the day of the exam.. Err, so then how do the students practice? Oh that's right, they go to the pool during school time. So, the pool is booked every Wednesday for example, by school, the department cancel regular pool session for exam, followed by two weeks later, when they still have that booking, and would still be taking students, so would still be staffed by school, they do the mop up... Cannot believe how hard that is. Film these students and submit.

For the record, I don't think you are being unreasonable. When girls get to the workplace they will not be forced to wear tampons. Or swim on their periods. (unless she becomes a swimming teacher, then she would obviously have to get by)

I don't have any medical problems, no endometriosis or anything, just heavy bleeding. My daughter hasn't started her periods yet but I'm not sure what else I could really do other than what my mum did which was to let me stay off when they were really bad, take iron supplements, try to deal with them and think about the pros and cons of hormonal contraceptives to stop them.

PP poster is correct that the world is not set up to deal with this normal part of being a woman. I remember being horrendously anxious about having bled through during a GCSE exam and being very glad I have a black skirt and brown chair.

And numerous times winding up reems of toilet roll to stuff in my pants constantly because we were banned from using the toilets during lessons.

PE teacher being unreasonable as are others who think they should use so ething they are not ready to use or simply can't. So lovely to see some women don't change their attitudes but expect men to! One reason why my DDs choose to stop PE as soon as they could in spite of my efforts to encourage tampon use to enable not to miss out.

out2

Not offred obvs

But i have tried to talk to our doctors re dd, keep getting dismissed

She has periods that are all over the place, she can go months without one, there is no routine and they can last a while and be quite happy

I will put money on her having polycystic ovaries, like me and like my (i belive undiagnosed) mother

But nope, keep getting dismissed