Aibu to expect my child to actually do sport during a PE lesson?

[FootballOnAgain]

My child missed 2 years of school due to EBSA and disability issues. He has worked very hard to get back into school, and the school have been very supportive. He is in secondary school and has been back full time since September, but he wasn’t doing PE lessons. I was so please that before Xmas he said he’d like to join PE after the break and today was his first lesson - he was excited about it.

He came home very deflated - they had played a team game and he had been made to sit on the bench for the whole lesson - along with one other boy. This was not at all his choice.

AIBU to expect that PE lessons are about getting kids active, not just about competition and leaving out the weakest students? I’m really disappointed and I feel like speaking to the school about it - I have a great relationship with them and would of course raise it in the most polite way to ask if this is standard and let them know that he was sad about it. WIBU to do this? Or is this just normal practice and he and I should suck it up?

On average children miss about 3 years of education due to disruptive behaviour in lessons. This happens so much in schools. It can be 5 mins of disruption or entire lessons. It is a total pain in the arse for children who want to learn and it is the main reason why teachers leave. Unfortunately, the badly behaved children don't care if they prevent others from accessing the lesson.

School had plenty of notice - I discussed his wish to go to PE classes with the SENDCO well before Xmas.

Teacher was not ‘used to him not joining’ - previously he has spent the PE lessons in the inclusion hub doing other educational stuff so PE teacher likely never saw him.

I am aware that behaviour is difficult and the teacher was in a difficult position, and the school generally is not good at dealing with bad behaviour quickly and efficiently.

I agree with pp who said teacher possibly was not aware this had happened. Having said this - it is definitely just a regular class size, ie 30 students - not half the year with one teacher.

DS has an EHCP but it does not make provision for a TA in every class with him, the school doesn’t have a TA in every class as standard. DS is very self conscious about feeling and looking ‘different’ and is trying very hard to avoid this. I will talk to him about speaking up if this does happen again, but while he has come a really really long way, I don’t think he is at the point where he could do this for himself just yet.

He has PE again today, so I will see how that has gone this evening and decide whether to raise it then.

I think that’s sensible really. Obviously you’ll have to speak to them if it happens again today.