PE Frustrations

[typoqueen]

Background.. DD just turned 12, first year of Senior school, born with hypoplasia left arm (half a forearm no left hand) so there are some things she struggles with obviously or has to devise her own way of doing somethings. She has always been a very active girl and enjoys having a go at anything, but she seems to be having problems with PE more so with the teacher than the actual activity, now bearing in mind that PE has so far consisted of Hockey, Badminton, Netball and gymnastics all requiring the use of 2 hands so she gets extremely frustrated when the PE teacher make her sit out of some of the activities, surly his activity plan should include my DD also she is always getting marked down for her homework as when she had to describe an activity she describes it the way she has to do it ie badminton, "i place the shuttle cock on the racket, flipping it up in the air then hitting it over the net" teacher marked it as incorrect procedure!! is DD or myself wrong to feel utterly frustrated, i want to speak to the school regarding this but wanted some MN advise as to if im making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I think sitting out is really bad form, she should either be able to join a class that is doing a sport she can do, or be at least allowed to have a go.

Re the homework, I think that's a little much. If they are marked in an exam on describing the actual correct procedure then she needs to prepare for this. Although homework for PE is a little excessive I think anyway!

Speak to the school. I'd arrange to meet with the PE teacher along with her head of year/support counsellor or whoever is responsible for the pastoral care of the 1st years.

Explain exactly as you did here, and ask them for their opinions. Be very clear that she is entitled to the same opportunity as everyone else to have a full PE lesson so he must ensure he plans activities for her.

With the theory, that's harder because she should know the correct way to do those things (for when she has kids herself, she should be able to explain how to do it 2 handed) but she should also get points for being able to find ways of doing it her way (so 1 handed). But the syllabus and the learning points are prescribed by the education system, not by the individual teacher so they won't always have the power to overall the "correct" answer. So that one will need some back and forth between you and the teachers to find out how she can answer the questions.

WOW! thank you so much for such quick replies, I will be speaking to SENDCO when i can get an appointment to discuss lesson plans and yes i tend to agree with you as regards to homework and that she should be using standard correct way of describing but just had a quick chat with DD about the homework where it says how she would do it. this seems like a cheeky reply to me as she said "the homework asks how YOU (said sarcastically "that means me") serve in a game of badminton and thats how i serve in a game of badminton"

It does sound a bit like you would need to find out the exact question asked as it sounds like they wanted the response of the standard best practise way to serve. If the question was just how do you serve then surely a lot of children might have got it wrong as I doubt they all do the serve perfectly. If the question said what is the best way for you to serve it might technically be different for her, but the teacher would have meant "you" in a general term not for the specific person. I suppose it might just come down to the teacher needing to write questions better e.g. something like what is the best standard practice way to serve.