DD is 8, Y4.
She has a medical condition which means when it’s cold, or damp or she has a mild cold she has to stay inside in the warm or she can’t walk due to the pain or if she falls she could seriously damage her legs.
This is all documented in an EHCP and in the schools own Individual Education Plan (which runs alongside the EHCP and basically tells the school day to day whose doing what and when).
Obviously, the last few months due to it being winter it’s been extremely cold, or very wet. Some days she goes to lunchtime clubs but these don’t run everyday so on days when she can’t go on the playground without a club she’s allowed to choose up to 2 other children from the class to stay inside with her – the teacher encourages her to choose different children each time but theres only around 5 children in the class she considers a friend, so those 5 children are rotated between in either different pairings or 1 at a time – although often those children volunteer themselves to stay inside (which I don’t blame them for when it’s freezing outside!).
Others in the class have caught onto this, and when it’s been very cold have been asking DD to choose them. I am fine with this as is the teacher who has encouraged DD to branch out with friends but she always wants one of these 5 whether she chooses someone else from the class or not – these are not necessarily the 5 children she sits with at school but ones a relative of hers (from her dad’s side) and the rest are various friends who she does out of school activities and goes the parties of.
Some of the parents whose DC don’t get regularly chosen by DD have also caught onto it, and have tried to become friends with me/DD and when that’s not worked, they’re now saying that DD “is the teachers favourite” and that everyone should be given the same chance to be inside and they will say it loudly as they walk passed us or ask their child loudly “So who did the teachers favourite choose to stay in with her today?” It’s getting awkward for DD and she’s now trying to go outside even when school or I deem it unsafe (I am allowed to email school and say I don’t think the conditions are appropriate for playground time today and they keep her inside).
Obviously if she can be on the playground DD is on it and as we go into spring and summer she’ll be on it more often than she is inside, but she did spend most of Autumn term 2 and all of Spring Term 1 inside, this is a safeguard for both DD and the school because apparently if she has a serious fall or injury when they knew about her condition it’s a legal minefield. So I now want to ask school to stop letting DD chose a friend and instead let those friends volunteer, or ask them to do a rota with the whole class so DDs not allowed but everyone gets a fair chance to be inside.
WIBU to ask this? Or are these other solutions?
This has come up again today as school have called me to say she wants to go out in the snow but they don’t believe she did so kept her inside.