"Forcing" children to include others

[DorothyL]

If your primary age child was told they had to commit to one day a week choosing to do an activity that makes it possible for a physically disabled child to join in, would you think this is fair enough or that your child shouldn't be forced to play with another child?

Although I think again the (right) secondary school will be able to be more adaptive. Some might offer alternative sports for students if there are enough with some sort of problem and the school is large enough. We have been told that they can do physio exercises instead of PE sometimes, with periods / teenage apathy and ingenuity more will be finding ways to not do PE. I know it won't mean that he can play football in the A team but he might find other friends. I would ring the secondary school and ask for a meeting. Unless most of his class are also going to same secondary I would start focusing on the new start - whilst still asking the primary school to make his lunchtimes more sociable.

How soon would you think a teacher should reply?

Thank you

😭 again 🙈😬

Dorothy, I’m both a primary teacher and the mum of a young person with autism. As a teacher, I would be trying to organise a special assembly about inclusion. Not focused on your child specifically to prevent him from feeling singled out. I’d also arrange follow up activities where children could feed back their ideas and concerns.

I’d be reminding the playmakers that their activities are to be open to all. Around now, I’d be looking at Y5 pupils to start taking over the role ready for September too which may make it easier for your son to join in. Would he feel comfortable taking on that kind of role himself? He could choose an activity to run that he enjoys and work with another child to make sure there is at least two of them. That would help one or two days a week but also open opportunities for other days as he gets to know others who are interested in the same kinds of activities.

A friendship bench or stop for when people feel left out or lonely is a good idea too.

Have you had any extra support for the transition to secondary? If not, I’d be speaking to the person who is in charge of transition to get a support plan in place ready.

As a mum, I’d be feeling pretty much the same as you. It isn’t much to ask to be included. I’d try to approach the school with some ideas. You shouldn’t have to. It is their job to make reasonable adjustments. Sometimes you get quicker results if you offer a few potential solutions rather than a problem. You are doing an amazing job. It is so tough being the parent of a child with additional needs. By far the most challenging yet most rewarding thing I have done in my life.

Forgive me I haven’t read the full thread.

I myself have a physical disability as well, notice I said I have it and not that I am it. A disability is something you have it’s not something you are. I also hate the term Special Needs, because it’s very devisive sounding, maybe extra or additional requirements would be better.

Does he wear orthotic equipment or have a walker? This might allow him to safely play football on his own. Does he have a playground assistant?if so they might be able to help him play football just to be there if needed.

Kids in school are mean I hated every minute. When he’s older people start to be more sensible. Not helpful now but he will find decent people eventually.

Good luck

@Lastnightidreamtofpotatoes Just to give a positive story, I have a physical disability, went to mainstream school. I used to do swimming during pe lessons. Sometimes a special school place is not needed. Without giving too much away, I progressed to and succeeded in higher education, without a problem. Disability is only one very small part of life

Absolutely Stella, disability (I actually hate that term more than SN!) is a part of someone and does not need to define them. I agree that a SS is not always necessary, but in many cases, esp where the physical needs are more then I believe it is the best. In an ideal world all schools will be fully inclusive, not just in theory but with adequate adaptive/assistive technology so that everyone has equal access.
It is totally crap as a parent knowing that other pupils and their parents resent your child being there, so I can only imagine as a young child entering into adulthood how that must feel (and children become more aware of these feelings into adolescence).
My friend has a son was spina bifida who is a FT wheelchair user. He moved to SS in Y5 as academically the gap between him and his peers was widening. All round though he has come on in leaps and bounds confidence wise; through school he can now do basketball, tennis, rock climbing and lots of other stuff that he would never have been able to access through mainstream. As his peers now are all having some degree of mobility issue this is all 'normalised' now and not an issue at all in school at all, rather than being othered in mainstream and being the child that can't attend the soft play bus or climbing wall at a class birthday party. It shouldn't have to be this way but it often is.

I'm sorry OP, but I think the roster is a terrible idea. It makes your child an obligation, 'I have to play with Joe on Tuesday doing a game I hate, but I can ignore him the rest of the week'. What they need to be doing is encouraging genuine friendships, where children want to spend time with him because they like him, not because the roster says they have to. I have a student who has multiple disabilities and I set up activities at lunchtime that students wanted to participate in, special 'invite only' events, and that led to them wanting to actually spend time with him. I don't need to be facilitating those friendship making opportunities anymore for him as he has real friends now.

I have to agree with Pengwynn here. I wouldnt force this upon anyone. So a child is forced to stay out of playing a sport to keep another child company - cant see how that wont build resentment. Why doesnt the school ban thr football on certain days that way all children are equally not allowed to play and have other activities to engage in.

Whilst I'm all for inclusion this isnt thr way to do it. And if each child has to take a turn then I can see how this can turn into resentment for a few children and then I would be worried about other things like bullying.

Op the school should plan an alternative activity for those that don't want to play sport or ban it on some days.

MissP103

Thanks, MissP.

I would be reluctant as a head or a teacher, though, to ban any physical activity.

Some students, for example, those who suffer with mental health problems, only get through the school day because they can kick a ball around at break and lunch. Just like the idea of forcing the children to play together, banning some of them from playing a particular game could impact on relationships as well as behaviour.

It's a horrible dilemma, but I would go down the encouragement route before any other steps were taken.

When I was a TA, lunchtime football became a problem as it took over the whole playground. They made two days a week football days and then got different equipment out on the other days. It was infants not juniors but I think would still work.

Not sure how big your playgrounds are but if we could go on the fields we'd have two games going. One for those who wanted to play to win and one for those who just wanted a kick about for fun.

I'm still a bit confused about what you actually want to happen OP. Do you want to make some of the kids play tag every lunchtime? Do they have to do it on their hands and knees? Or just play catch endlessly? Also, is it that your DS can play football but he's not able to do it well because of his disability?

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a realistic way that you can force the other kids to pay the games your DS wants without creating resentment. And I wouldn't be happy with the idea of making kids to play a game on their hands and knees on a hard playground floor - if I have understood correctly that this is what you would like. If your DS can play football, even not very well, perhaps you could see if there is a way of including him in that without altering the game for everyone (eg would he be any good as a goalie because he won't have as far to move? This might be a stupid suggestion but the nature of your DS's disability hasn't been explained. Perhaps whatever team he is on gets an extra player or gets to choose the strongest player first?). It sounds like your DS does have options for non-active games in any event (you mention Pokémon etc) they're just not ones that he particularly likes, but it's rather unfortunate that it sounds like the types of active games he can join in with is rather limited. Are there any other non-active games/activities that he might like that the kids who don't want to play football would want to join in with?

Pp have mentioned reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act but I don't think they would strictly apply here as this is about controlling social playtime behaviour rather than the education that the school is providing. I'm not sure if pp meant that reasonable adjustments should be made in the spirit of the law, but as I say above, I'm still not clear about what you want and whether it would be reasonable.

I guess it's not long until the summer holidays at least.

I think it would be better if they just created smaller groups and allowed them to decide amongst themselves what they want to play.

So sometimes your DS will have to play Pokemon or whatever, sometimes they'll play tag or football with adjustments as they know they have to include him etc.

Might help other kids on the fringes as well, but it's less likely to cause resentment.

Could something like this work?

To add, and I'm somewhat reluctant to say this, in my experience primary schools are much better than secondary schools at trying to get students to be inclusive and not bully/exclude/isolate etc. I can't really imagine an ordinary secondary school making a rota for students to play the kind of games your DS likes. The secondaries I went to the teachers didn't really seem to care about what everyone did during the breaks as long as there was no physical violence.

Maybe this doesn't apply to you and you've found a really amazing secondary, but if it's anything like the ones I went to I think the best thing would be to try and find new ways for your DS to adapt to his environment rather than trying to change the school. If you do succeed with getting the primary to change and they implement something for the last few weeks of term, might it set up unrealistic expectations for next year?

Sorry if this sounds harsh

Absolutely. If it were my child I would expect the school to facilitate group activities/ games that your child can be included in and yes for it to be monitored. It's part of his socialisation and part of theirs (the more able bodied children's) too. Once a week is a very small commitment. Too small in my opinion. I would be encouraging my little girl to invite anyone with disabilities to join in and yes if that means making adjustments to games to allow then so be it.

OP sorry if this has been covered (haven't read the whole thread) but there's examples of games designed to be inclusive that you could maybe chat to the teacher about introducing, perhaps on an invitation basis. You know, billed as a fun opportunity that they get to take part in.

www.scope.org.uk/support/families/play/games/index