Wheelchair football at school?

[TokenBritPoshOfCourse]

I don’t know if I’m being a bit reactive, and I don’t know how it was presented but they had ‘alternative sports day’ at school this week and one of the events was wheelchair football. For able bodied pupils.

I feel a bit icky about it, I can sort of see that it might have been presented as a teaching moment but honestly I think there are better ways to do that than having a great old time pretending for fun.

We did an experiment at my secondary school (a v v long time ago...) where we had a few students try to navigate school in a wheelchair (spoiler, they couldn’t), and I can see the lesson in that, but five a side football in wheelchairs for six year olds just strikes me as insensitive and pointless.

I’m thinking of being that parent but I wasn’t actually there and I’ve only seen photos. Has anyone had this at school and can convince me it’s a positive activity? I should say there are no wheelchair users at the school.

yanbu
that is just odd. can't think what it taught the children about being in a wheelchair. dd is a lifetime wc user and its not fun it BLOODY hard. so perhaps showing children that......the fact that there were no "real WC users" makes it even worse. up there with pretending to be disabled.

My 10 year old and my 5 year old are both part time wheelchair users. I think it would be good to do it there was a child in the class who used a wheelchair but when all the children are able bodied then I don't know.

The local wheelchair basket ball club were recruiting for new players, including able bodied players. They just needed more participants to be able to train and play games.
Could it be something like that?
Also the sports chairs (I don’t know what they are called) are really expensive so often funding grants requires getting the most use of them.

I read an article (possibly on the bbc) a few months ago, that said that activities that show how difficult it is to be disabled (for example spending a day in a wheelchair or completing a task whilst blindfolded), actually cause people to have more negative views of those with disabilities. Possibly this means that the opposite is also true, and that having fun whilst doing an activity that involves being ‘disabled’ will cause people to have more positive views?