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.

Holy shit.

My son is a para swimmer. When he joins races with his club he is entitled to a warm up. They usually give him a lane to himself while 6-10 others warm up in other lanes. This is fairer for everyone. My son is very good for his classification but he will always be slower than able bodied swimmers if actually faster than most others in his class. If they share a lane no-one gets a good warm up. So he gets the same resources 6-10 others get as otherwise everyone suffers as able bodied children can pace each other. Or my son doesn't compete.

I also misinterpreted your original position @Secondwindplease - apologies for that.

Yes your explanation is pretty much what I would say. I thought you meant it was unfair they had additional resources (space in this case). Apols again.

Someone assessed it and decided they do, you want your child to have more space but be disabled?

What I want is for the question to be answered fully, explaining to the child asking a perfectly legitimate question that their classmate has more space because that’s what it takes to give them the same opportunity to participate as everyone else. Instead of just shaming them with ‘well would you rather be disabled?’, which is a missed opportunity to educate about inclusion and an idiot response, frankly, that you have just perpetuated.

Please go through the thread and read my posts, where I have already explained this.

I imagine there is also some privacy for the child in question where their needs do not have to be explained to other kids in details just because they are nosy and once a week for 30 min they have to give up a bit of space for someone else.

Why do we have to entertain explicit and in depth explanation about details of someone's health/condition. I get your point, but far too often I see parents and their precious little kids chanllenging and demanding to know details they are not entitled to know, there are two sides of it.

There needs to be a conversation, for sure,but also sometimes kids and their parents need to accept some information are not to be given and they have to accept it's like that because.

A questioning child is not just being nosy, they have sensed that something is unequal and they need help to understand why. It’s perfectly possible to respond in a principled and educational way without compromising the privacy of the child with extra needs.

’Because’ it not a helpful answer to any question, and it certainly doesn’t breakdown barriers for people with disabilities. It might feel like a quick win at the time, but it doesn’t actually help.

This could be my child. Do able bodied children have access to every club for every sport (yes). If this adjustment wasn’t made would the child be excluded from taking part altogether, probably yes.

as I always say the easiest solution if for children who think it’s unfair to permanently disable themselves and then they can have all the benefits. Then lots of people shout at me and act horrified but that’s the reality.

It does seem unfair. Why can't the child who needs more space just use the facilities at a different time? That would seem a better reasonable adjustment.

How is that fair? Because it’s out of sight out of mind for everyone else?

why should that child have to have their break time at a different time to everyone else?

But it’s not the easiest solution is it? That just creates more disabled people who have to contend with a prevailing culture of exclusion. The easiest solution, if course, is for schools to be a place that gently explain the differences between equality and fairness, and promote inclusion so that the next generation is better than the last.

Show him this and tell him not to be so selfish.

Because they can't cope with the general melee when everyone does it at the same time?

Show him this and tell him it’s ok to ask questions about things he doesn’t understand, because that’s how we learn, and learning is important because then we can adjust our thinking and behaviour.

But they can with a simple reasonable adjustment.

That relies on there being extra space in the timetable, and extra staff.

And more importantly it ostracises the disabled child more than he already has to be- with this set up he is taking part in pe lessons (which he is legally entitled to do by the way) with his peers, to the best of his ability.