Withdrawing a KS3 child from PE permanently due to medical grounds

[piedpiper4]

Sorry, posting here for traffic. I have posted elsewhere. Basically as it says in the title. I need to find out the legal guidelines for permanently withdrawing dd(13) from PE on medical grounds. I have a meeting with the Head on Tuesday and I'd like to make sure I'm fully prepared. Many thanks.

I don’t think in most cases stopping it is the best course of action, I think team work to find how best to support the individual is more important.

Ds has 1-1 for PE so he will either do an adapted version of whatever the rest of the class is doing or she will do specific targeted work with him depending on what the class are doing.

There are going to be very few people who won’t benefit from physical activity when it is done well rather than excluding them from an area of the curriculum

My Dbro is 14 and permanently withdrawn from PE on medical grounds. To get him withdrawn it was quite a fight, DB ended up in hospital after his 2nd PE lesson because the PE teacher decided the note wasn't good enough and made him do it in kit found in lost property, DB being a good kid didn't think to just refuse to do what he was told. It took months of arguing with the school, GP and consultant notes and teaching my brother to flat out refuse to do it before the head finally accepted it, he is still expected to go down to the PE hall and sit in there and watch/time things etc, periodically the PE teacher will try to make him join in still and he'll get given detention, which he then doesn't go to and then the school have to call mum.

It really depends on the school though, other DB is 17 and has has the same condition as the 14 year old but at a different school and mum just got can we see the medical evidence? yep that's fine, he can work in the study center, he just needs to make sure to sign in/out with the teacher in there and apart from one year when a PE teacher wasn't paying attention and wrote on his report 'x is an unremarkable sportsman but tries hard' there was never another mention of him doing PE.

Sounds weird that you have to have a meeting about it. DD 15 has not done pe at school since year 7 for medical reasons, we just sent a letter in stating the facts and told them to contact us if they had any questions or needed anything else.

We had an acknowledgement back that said they expected her to use the time productively with work for other subjects or a book and if she disrupted other students she would get detention.

Have you spoken to the school ? If it's a real problem I can't see why they wouldn't help you . My son is disabled and his school is amazing !!

Is she really so unwell that she cannot do ANY kind of physical activity?

There's a child in my son's class who doesn't do PE for medical reasons. It wasn't a big issue with the school, when the rest of the class is in PE, he goes to teh library. This is a child with an extensive medical history though and ample "proof".

I would not expect a school to agree to allow a child to skip PE on a parent's say so.

How much evidence/meetings/whatever will depend on the school though. I stopped doing PE at 14 because I got picked on and nobody would willingly let me be on their team. One day, I went to the art rooms to do my art coursework instead and nobody told me I had to go back to PE so I just did extra art for two years. With actual medical reasons, it's not necessarily going to be a massive legal argument to get the school to agree.

I didn't do PE for a while as I had anorexia. I had to do revision for other subjects too. When I was well enough someone from my school met with people from my medical team to plan around the whole curriculum what I could and couldn't do.

We've had to provide consultants letters to withdraw from a terms worth of PE. Gp wasn't sufficient! Luckily we were just able to take a copy of the initial diagnostic letter but still...

We've had to provide consultants letters to withdraw from a terms worth of PE. Gp wasn't sufficient! Luckily we were just able to take a copy of the initial diagnostic letter but still...

All PE? PE is a pretty general term covering lots of very different activities. Can she do no physical exercise at all?

As you saying been so vague makes it difficult to answer...

My mum wrote a letter for me to not do PE until further notice in my last year of middles school ( 30 years ago) ..It was meant to be a couple of months but no one ever questioned it ..I took the year off as I hated it. I remember sunbathing while everyone ran.. Due to length of time ago not sure it is relevant either.

I am assuming here that the school have been less than understanding, given that they have already got a copy of your daughters medical conditions and have not granted and exemption.
Go to your GP and get a letter expressly stating P.E is not to be engaged with under any circumstances and what injuries/exacerbated problems this could cause.
Get the same but more technical and more don't you even try to make her do it style from your consultant.
Make enquiries into further action legal, LEA, governors, directors etc in case the head decides they know better and try to force the issue.
It seems you may be with a school that thinks it make it's own decisions with regards to the children in their cares medical state, or it could just be that they want everything spelled out to cover their own backs with Ofsted and the like.

It might be more than just the facts as well, Penggwyn. If it is a school that is legally obliged to follow the national curriculum, then they are also legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments to allow children with disabilities to access as much of the curriculum as possible.

It would be reasonable for a school to ask for a meeting to discuss which of the things they often put in place would be manageable by individual children.

The thing is it's hard to give accuate advice when you're being so vague.

Is it a physical issue or a mental health issue?

Is it that she can't participate at all in any part of the lesson or could she participate just on a modified curriculum - eg if she had a condition so she could do gym/dance but not contact sports like rugby or basketball?

Is there no way she could participate at all - by doing time keeping/set up/score keeping etc?

Is PE the only subject she can't participate in or is her condition going to be (or is currently) affecting other subjects?

Is her condition going to improve/change so they could put in temporary allowances for being "off PE" and she can potentially reintegrate into the lessons in the future or is it a permanent thing that she will never participate?

My DD didn’t do PE last year due to medical reasons. It was also because of health and safety reasons too. This was agreed between us and the school.
This year she has returned to PE, but needs to stop again. This year has proved more problematic though and we require a letter from her consultant.

Oh, the happy olden days when one hid behind the long curtains in the library.

Sorry, I know that's no help.

I was permanently withdrawn from PE at 13 due to my M.E. A single lesson would wipe me out for an entire week, whereas without it I could just about cope with attending the rest of my morning timetable. I believe my parents had to get a consultant's letter and go before the governors.

Sorry I've been so long replying. DD issues are very complex and the PE situation will be ongoing, hence the request for a permanent withdrawl. Our asking to withdraw her from PE is not something we are taking lightly. In fact we have fought for the last 10 years for her to take part in all the same activities as her peers. However, the situation now is that PE is causing her severe harm and we can no longer allow this to happen. We have tried sending notes to school when she was told by the hospital that she couldn't do PE, but they still made her, after all...'it's only javelin'. Obviously there is a lot more to this story and I share your frustration with the lack of details. We will be going into the meeting armed with everything we have. Unfortunately, this was only arranged yesterday and the meeting is Tuesday, so no time to get a consultants letter, but we will have no problem with going this route if we need to. All I can say is that the consequences for DD doing PE will be long lasting and very damaging. As parents we can't allow that to happen. Thanks for all your help.

We withdrew our DD from the elements of PE that would prove an issue. She used the time to do homework when she couldn't join in.

It's hard to give an opinion really as there's no clue what your DDs issues are. So just get your info together and get hold of whatever paperwork the school need and be firm. It's hard to think there's no physical activity at all she could join in with but only you know what the situation and by extension any damage involves. Hope meeting goes ok for you all

Pengggwn, they haven't so far because it's not been asked before. As I said, we have fought for her to do all the same activities as her peers up til now. The situation has now changed and PE is now causing harm.