Is it fair to have school facilities divided in such a way?

[Elwyn]

Say there is an area dedicated to a particular sport and it is divided up into half that is used by a child who I presume presents with additional needs and their friend and the other half is used by the rest of the children who also want to do this sport (about 10 kids and it can get quite crowded). Does this happen in other schools? My child understands about the fact that children with additional needs will have extra provisions made available to them but he feels this is just creating resentment because it seems so imbalanced. I am wondering if there is anything else I can tell him that will help make sense of it.

Depends why the child needs half the area.

Why can't they join the others?

This.

Can you imagine the uproar if the other children were hit with bats, knocked over every lesson, had their feet run over or were hit in the face with balls?

You don’t know why the child needs the extra space, it could well be best for the rest of the class as well as for the disabled child.

@Elwyn you will learn very quickly on Mumsnet that there is no such thing as disadvantaging NT children. Standards can drop in the school because funding has to be allocated elsewhere, but NT are never disadvantaged.

What do you mean?

It's none of your business or your childs. As pp said, I'm sure the child would happily swap any funding for not being disabled \ disadvantaged.

Teach your child inclusivity. Better still, learn about it yourself

It should be possible to have a discussion about equity and inclusion without using ‘just be grateful you don’t have a disability’ to shut it down.

How does that shut the debate down?

I am wondering if there is anything else I can tell him that will help make sense of it. I'd tell him it isn't unfair IMO and start an age-appropriate conversation about equity.

I'd tell him other children will hopefully be told by their own parents not to resent reasonable adjustments.

By 'NT' do you mean 'non-disabled'?

Because it doesn’t actually address the question of whether one child with extra needs requires half the available space, does it? It just tells people to stop asking awkward questions. Because disability.

Fair doesn’t always mean equal. This is a very simple visual illustration which a child should be able to understand. Sometimes people need more in order to put them in the same position as everyone else.

This is the exact picture I was thinking of when I read the post .

My Ds does have Sn’s - the mantra life isn’t fair is one he gets told because it isn’t .

life is so much challenging for parents and children with Sn’s - my Ds will try and fit in with NT children best he can but if the school deem this necessary then there is a reason.

There are so many children struggling in mainstream schools which are unsuitable because the word inclusivity is a nice buzz word that is not funded - so yes NT kids do lose , ND kids lose too.

I've seen that one with the caption ' this is theft, none of them paid for a ticket', and now I can't look at it in the same way 🤣

Yes, I think you should stop asking those questions. The person in charge who has far more info than anyone else has deemed this to be a reasonable adjustment.

If you had the same needs you'd get the same.

I don't need a blue badge. I don't need the 1-person office my colleague does. It's not my place to start asking if other people need them. It's a nasty line of questioning designed to undermine the needs of people with SEN/disabilities.

@EbiRaisukaree I was going to post exactly what you did... Great minds lol.

So if your child was the one who required this adjustment to access the same class would you be saying it's not fair to the other kids? Absolutely not.

The question the op asked was “how can I talk to my son about why a disabled child gets half the sports pitch”- talking to him about the fact that half a sports pitch in pe doesn’t make up for a life time of disability and the child is better off with a rubbish pe lesson than a disability is one way of doing that. I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily take that attitude with a kid but then I’m not that mum.

Saying it doesn’t stop anyone else having an opinion… lots of other posters have managed to post theirs so clearly it doesn’t shut down discussion.

I’d probably tell my children that schools have to adapt to help children with additional needs access learning and sports. The people that support this young person have obviously planned to support this child by making sure they have space and that will help this child be involved in sport. That’s it.

Im assuming you don’t know the ins and out of the child’s needs so can’t explain anymore.

A couple of years ago my kid was allowed to go into lunch first with one of her friends every single day. So none of the other children ever got to go into lunch first and they always had to queue for longer. Some kids complained about this and told her it wasn’t fair. Sounds unfair right?

She was on chemo at the time and felt permanently ill and exhausted to the extent of needing a wheelchair for longer distances. But she was desperate to be with her friends and to be as normal as possible and this “unfair” solution allowed her to do so.

So I’d explain it to your kid by saying that sometimes people with disabilities have different needs and need us to give them more help / support to get as close as possible to the experience that kids without disabilities are lucky enough to have.

Hope that helps.

So 12 kids want to do this sport, and there are two pitches/ areas. The 10-2 split allows all to play, even if some find it crowded. The alternative is likely that 11 kids play 5 or 6 to a pitch and one is unable to play at all.

Out of intrest, would your DS complain if there was only one pitch and 10 kids, or is the 'problem' that the other kids appears to have more?

Would they also complain if the steps up to a building were made narrower to allow room for a ramp?

But the child with additional needs hasn’t been given half the space as compensation for a lifetime of disability, have they? They have been given it because they need it to thrive, and rightly so. That’s the conversation that needs to be had. The whole ‘stop asking questions and just be glad you’re not them’ approach is a backwards step in educating people on inclusion. That was my original point.

If a question is asked in good faith (and it usually is, especially by children) then it should be answered in good faith.

This reminds me of the parent who complained to school that it wasn’t fair that my Ds got his own teacher and her daughter didn’t.

ds has a full time 1-1 (ta not teacher obviously!) as we fought to get the right support written into his ehcp. Him having that provision doesn’t take away from the education of anyone else in the class, infact it probably makes things better for them as the class teacher and TA aren’t spending a disproportionate amount of time supporting him.

different children will need different things in order to access things. That’s actually making things closer to fair rather than unfair

So there are 2 table tennis tables, one reserved for 2 students and the other to be shared by others.
Explain to your child that yes, this seems really unfair, but having SEN is not fair, either.
Has your child ever benefited from a protected area, eg different playgrounds in primary or an area for Year 7s only in secondary? Maybe that makes is more understandable.

I doubt that'll work. Her child is likely old enough to sense a false dichotomy even if he doesn't know the term for it.

If a question is asked in good faith (and it usually is, especially by children) then it should be answered in good faith.

I agree.

I think I misunderstood the point you were making- sorry!