To ask if you can think of an excuse which will get 11yo off PE for the rest of term?

[HelloKittyGirl]

Just that, basically. What would get her off games for a few weeks?

"I don't think standing waiting, knowing you will be the last person to be picked because you are hopeless at PE, and the ensuing shame of a terrible performance teaches you anything about teamwork actually."

Exactly, when there's a big difference in ability, you're not part of the team. Nobody would throw me the ball because they knew I'd run away in horror with a ball coming towards me so I wasn't really part of anything anyway. I used to sit and make daisy chains when I was supposed to be fielding.
Not teamwork and not exercise either!

But why? What’s your aim here?

My children go to an average local Comp and they don't have people on the staff who are sadistic bullies who enjoy humiliating kids. What sort of schools are these where they employ people like that?

"remember if she's cold she is probably not doing it properly."

Oh FFS, if she's not sporty, she's not sporty. It's not something you choose!

@Asperula

My children go to an average local Comp and they don't have people on the staff who are sadistic bullies who enjoy humiliating kids. What sort of schools are these where they employ people like that?

How would you know?

God I fucking hated PE. I was useless at sport. Now I’m later life I have realised that I’m probably dyspraxic. I had the piss ripped out of me by everyone including the teachers.

Two years I stomached it until I would go in every week and tell the male teacher I had my period and couldn’t participate.

PE put me off enjoying exercise or trying any other kind of sport. If you are crap at sports it can absolutely break you.

My daughter has asked me before to get her out of it because much like me she is rubbish at sports. She was being picked on. So yes I’ve written the note for her.

I encourage my children to exercise but am I going to force them to participate in something where they ritually humiliated, knowing how it made me feel. No.

I’m amused by all the people who think that children actually get good exercise in PE lessons and learn teamwork and sportsmanship and so on. That hasn’t been my experience! The tricky bit is teaching her to lie her way out of a tricky situation though. Lying is such a bad habit and a weak thing to do. It’s students mucking about like this that make teachers suspicious when a child genuinely has stomach/period pain / needs the loo urgently. Teachers so often assume children are lying… Because of children like this one.

So you're ok teaching your daughter that if you don't want to do something in life it's ok to lie your way out of it that's some rod you're making for yourself!

Just to add, not playing rounders twice a week has had no effect on my physical health or enthusiasm for exercise in later life.

On the other hand, the bullying (from teachers and other kids) has had a significant, long-term, and resoundingly negative effect on my general self-esteem, my assertiveness in relationships, and my confidence in the workplace. I'm still trying to unpick this in therapy.

Not doing PE is not the same as not doing maths. It just isn't. Other lessons don't involve ritual humiliation.

In my experience the vast majority of teachers are not sadistic bullies who enjoy humiliating kids but there's usually one in a school.

..and it's not unusual for them to be attached to the P.E. department.

What sort of schools are these where they employ people like that?

My old local comp for one. I remember skiving from PE one day and I passed by the boys in the gym. The male PE teacher was yelling at them (as usual) and I'll never forget what that evil prick did. He made the biggest boy in the class take his top off in front of all the other boys and told yelled "Do you want to end up looking like Billy? Well do you!?" I almost burst into tears, Billy (not real name) was bright red and how he didn't cry I don't know, I wish I'd done something about it at the time but I just made an effort to be extra nice to Billy and stick up for him when he was picked on. Billy had no idea I'd seen it and I'd never have told him for fear of adding to his humiliation.

The PE teacher still works there now.

I fucking hated PE and when I badly broke my arm the idea of getting out of PE really cheered me up.

However despite several fractures and a partial dislocation, which wasn't in plaster, I didn't get to sit in the library. Even though it would have been useful to catch up on work I was struggling with due to being one handed and having to leave lessons early to avoid crowds. I had to go to PE every lesson and stay with the class. I didn't have to change (I couldn't have done) but I had to keep score, time things, measure stuff, help get out and put away equipment etc. Thank god it was spring/summer so the weather was ok or it would have been even more awful.

It is not worth it.

Think you're getting a hard time here OP. You are teaching your child that you're on her side...I'm sure there's a very good reason she doesn't want to do PE.
I've given notes getting my girls out of PE and I work in a school! Sometimes it's needed.

I was that child who was never picked too 😥 I'm in my 40s and can still remember the humiliation and how upset I felt. I was too short for netball, rubbish at hockey, couldn't throw anything far enough in athletics, always came last in races. I remember being forced to finish running around the school field even though I felt like I was dying. Soon after that I was diagnosed with severe anaemia and needed a blood transfusion- no wonder I was too knackered to run around a field. Left me with a life long hatred of exercise.

@SenselessUbiquity

I am really curious as to why there is such a strong view that it's a terrible lesson that kids learn that they have some choice in what they do, and they don't have to do things they don't enjoy that have no value to them.

One of the worst lessons I ever learnt, and I learnt it far too well, is that you have to do everything other people want you to do. I have stuck at shit jobs and shit relationships far too long in my life. I am 50 now, and gosh life is short. I wish to god I'd wasted less of it on
this defeatist attitude that you just have to get on with things.

This x a million. Thank god, sense at last.

And if it was maths. Or English?

I think it’s an awful message to send to your daughter. She’s going to have to do tasks that she doesn’t like when she goes to work, she won’t be able to get you to come up with an excuse to get out of that. The teachers aren’t daft either and will cotton on that it’s bullshit. Don’t teach her to lie.

All school PE did was put me off exercise! Everyone used to say they had polycistic ovaries in my day. Not sure if that would still fly?!

I used to ask my dad to write me a note to get off PE, he never would. I just hated the shame of always being picked last or the girl doing the picking turning to the teacher and saying”do we have to have her?” 😂

"Not doing PE is not the same as not doing maths. It just isn't. Other lessons don't involve ritual humiliation"

Other lessons can and do involve ritual humiliation. If you can't read, or spell, how much fun do you think English is? Or history, geography, etc? If you are socially phobic, drama can be horrific. If you have memory problems, content heavy lessons are humiliating.

You were just lucky that the thing you found hard didn't underpin access to every subject.

I don't blame anyone for getting out of PE. I hated it, found it humiliating and scary, was completely useless, except for swimming which I quite enjoyed. Like your daughter, I walked a lot - miles sometimes - and grew up to be a fit person.

PE teachers had no sympathy, seemed unable to understand that some kids just can not.

My son also didn't like games but he is a more laid back person than I and didn't feel the panic, he just learned how to skive. He walked, cycled and swam, no problems.

Asperula

WhenZoomWasJustAnIceLolly
Team sportsmanship my arse 😂

Bullying, public humiliation, a lifetime of psychological issues. I wouldn’t care if my dc never did PE again.
That's awful that there's so much bullying and public humiliation at your dcs' school. I'd probably try and move them to another school if I were you

*the trouble is asperula, it’s the case in many many schools. I had undiagnosed disabilities that I actually fought against in order to do PE for as long as I could, but when I was subluxating a joint every other day I had to give in and stop playing netball and then my PE teacher turned on me and made my life hell. Then when I couldn’t do PE at all anymore she just called me lazy and fat and vain (with 5 layers of make up on her face).

PE can be hell and pretending otherwise helps no one.

@Asperula I meant to tag you in the above post, sorry.

My children go to an average local Comp and they don't have people on the staff who are sadistic bullies who enjoy humiliating kids. What sort of schools are these where they employ people like that?
How would you know?
Because I've got a dd in Year 13 and one in Year 10 and they talk about school to me?