... to think this parent is being a bit prescious, and this school a bit weak?

[mw14]

Speaking to a friend yesterday, I began to think I've turned into an old git, but on consideration I'm convinced I'm right. My friend has a daughter who is 13. For the first two indoor PE lessons of the term, she claims she forgot her trainers, and as a result, her teacher allowed her to sit out the lesson. The school were displeased though, and emailed my friend to alert her and ask for her support in ensuring she had her full kit. The girl got a talking to from her mother, but then, yesterday, her mother received a phone call from the school.

Apparently, she'd yet again claimed to have forgotten or lost her trainers, clearly expecting to once again sit on the sidelines. However, this time the teacher did the right thing, and ordered her to get changed into her PE kit and to do the lesson in bare feet. For some reason, this upset her, and she's since had the audacity to complain to her mother about it being "unfair" and "horrible".

I don't want to sound like a miserable old sod, but it's almost unbelievable on several levels. Firstly, that the school accepts "I have no trainers" as an excuse. Secondly, that my friend, like so many parents, has not got a proper grip of her daughter, and thirdly that she saw doing PE in bare feet as such a bad thing! AIBU?

[mw14]

I agree minerva, the girl did think it better to sit on the side and watch - but my point is that children should not be allowed to opt out simply because they don't want to do a lesson. It's not acceptable in maths, English etc, and as long as PE is compulsory, it shouldn't be acceptable there either. The merits or otherwise of PE and how it is taught and organised is a slightly different argument, in my view.

Like you, I cannot believe she thought it would work!

[mw14]

LadyGlencoraPalliser, it was indoors; gymnastics I believe. The school didn't offer lost proporty or bare feet, they (this week at least!) told her to do it in her bare feet.

[mw14]

My spelling seems shocking today! I meant property, of course!

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

Tries to get head round notion of doing gymnastics in trainers anyway.
Fails.

[TheCrackFox]

When I was at school there were loads of kids who sat at the back of the class and did bugger all. They were not ritually humiliated by the other children or the teachers. They were pretty much left to their won devices.

However, if you were a bit crap at Badminton then it was deemed acceptable to have the piss taken out of you.

[TheCrackFox]

"Doing" gymnastics pretty much scarred me for life.

[mw14]

I too was a bit shocked that they do gymnastics in trainers!

[2kidzandi]

I used to write fake sick notes and forge my mums signature to get out of PE. I really hated doing it during my periods, since we had PE skirts which were really short and made it obvious I was wearing pads - which meant being teased.

If my child didn't want to attend them they'd have my full suppport!

[MintyCane]

Oh no you have just brought back a hideous memory of me and my friend having to do a dance routine in front of the whole school. We had to wear horrible leotards in shiny royal blue. My poor friends boobs fell out of the top of it when she did a cartwheel. She was utterly humiliated.

I am sure those leotards were especially designed to go right up your bum all the time as well. Hideous.

[AnyFucker]

give permission to bunk off ?

I hope that poster was joking, 'cos that is a crap attitude

your kids will grow up disrespecting rules and authority

so they don't fancy maths...oookkk, bunk off love, nasty teacher shouldn't make you do it

interview for college ? noooo love, you are much too precious for that, fancy having to explain yourself, its sooooooo humiliating

that kind of approach is corrosive

oh, and greensleeves, I usually love your posts, but if a child got a report like that I would be ashamed

< shuffles off, muttering "and people wonder why society is in the state it's in...>

[minervaitalica]

mw14, I agree with you re: punishment (she did lie to get out of a lesson, which is out of order), but I disagree in that how PE is taught has no bearing on this.

If the story was about someone who was not confident at reading and hates English class and tries to ditch all the time, and as a punishment was made to stand in front of the class and read aloud, there would be an outcry about the poor educational methods of the teacher in question.

However, if a PE teacher comes up with a punishment which is equally humiliating to a girl who has got some issues with the subject, that is OK. Why the double standards?

If PE is to be considered at the same level as other subjects (and it should be), then I expect the teacher to work effectively working with students at all levels.

[franklymydear]

a child at our school would get an immediate and automatic detention for not being prepared for lessons. The parent would be called and asked to bring them in

[JustAnotherManicMummy]

MintyCane did you go to my school?

We had a PE teacher who would drive her Fiesta round the playing field leaning out of the window shouting at us whilst we ran round in completely inappropriate gym knickers and airtex shirts in the drizzle?

I quite liked sport until secondary school then it was just sadistic torture.

Doesn't excuse that lame excuse offered by the OP's friend's DD.

Must try harder!

[MintyCane]

JustAnoterhManicMummy It could have been the same school. Did she have a bum like a shelf and smoke fags all the time ?

AnyFucker Of course I was joking about giving permision to bunk off.

[Eeek]

We were allowed to choose from age 14 or 15. One girl brought in a tape machine and put on Jane Fonda and we all did aerobics. The year after they let us go to the next town to the swimming pool. And we did rather than bunking off. Amazing really!

[JustAnotherManicMummy]

MintyCane she smoked fags whilst driving round the field leaning out of the window!

She had screw round her neck on a chain.

This was about 15 years ago but I think she'd been there since the year dot. She's probably still there!

[AnyFucker]

riven, I think you are being disingenous here

You know perfectly well the kind of corrosive contempt towards teachers, police officers and employers I am talking about

we have a large minority of disaffected young people on our hands at the moment and I think one of the many roots of that is a pervasive feeling that we are owed a living/owed respect/owed fucking everything we want because we want it

protesting againt blatant wrongs in this world is something else (and I don't put school PE in that category even though my dd, 14 would)

school PE is part of life, are we suggesting it should be taken off the curriculum completely?

because tbh, we might as well, mightn't we?

[AnyFucker]

maths used to make me cry

and still does

and tbh, if some poor fat johhny is gonna get bullied/ridiculed, its gonna happen outside of PE lessons too

at least during a lesson there is (usually, I'm not talking about the bad apples of which there are always some) a teacher present who can protect him/divert the bullies

[curiositykilled]

I'm a bit concerned that neither parents or school seem to have asked why the child really doesn't want to do games.

[Acanthus]

This CHOICE scenario is a fantastic idea. NOTHING like that at my comprehensive in the 1980s. And the idea of CHOOSING YOUR OWN ABILITY GROUP. Bloody marvellous.

Why isn't PE always done like that?

(I'm another PE hater, no ability, no inclination. Now I go to the gym and I cycle. You'd never ever get me on any kind of pitch )

[vinblanc]

I don't think teenagers are very discerning about what is fair and unfair.

If the child deliberately forgot her trainers so she could go off games then surely that would be unfair to those other lumps that did bring in their trainers?

Fair just means treating everyone the same, but teenagers don't often see it that way. If anything goes against what they want, then it is automatically unfair.

[2kidzandi]

Riven. I know where I would land on the horse if I tried it now......either that or I'd miss it altogether