Should sport in school be damaging?

[Zontiki]

The teacher in DDs sport lessons (who is the head of sport there) told the pupils that they should not be afraid of lacrosse sticks and of falling down etc., as braking legs, arms, fingers is normal in sport and everyone of them will sooner or later break something in the PE lesson.

DD was shocked and is really afraid of PE now. Indeed last year one girl from DD's class broke her leg and another girl broke two fingers as she was hit by a lacrosse stick.

DD is very serious about her musical studies, she plays piano and violin and has high grades in both, and she is in two orchestras. If she breaks arm or finger it will be disaster for her.

What should we do? Is it possible to ask for permission not to attend PE lessons?

We are not against sport, and in fact I like sport and always encouraged my kids in jogging, cycling etc. However we always thought the sport should be for health and not against. Of course there can be accidents, but if you don't care to take precautions and your sport is damaging, why should my child be forced into it in school against her and my will?

there are padded gloves you can wear for hockey and lacrosse which help protect fingers - dd wears one after hurting her fingers too many times.

But honestly no - as everyone has said, take with a pinch of salt what the teacher has said.

I got ligament damage in my ankle... From cross country. And multiple sprained wrists.

I also got concussion falling off a chair.

The worst children's sporting injury I ever heard of (in my own social circles) was a cyclist. (Traffic coming the other way, one car overtaking another, the young person on the bike veered off the road to avoid a head on smash with the car and hit a tree at 20 mph. I forget all the details, but broken shoulder was definitely one of the injuries)

OP - you and your daughter need to get used to the idea that every day life is full of risk of injury and 99% of injuries are extremely minor and inconsequential. A broken arm or finger would be a pain in the neck for a few weeks, but not "a disaster".

I have only heard of one or two injuries in PE in my years of teaching especially in girls PE where none of them get too involved or take it seriously but then the school I am at doesn't do lacrosse and I don't know the rules so I can't comment on lacrosse itself. I mean though PE teachers are meant to plan their lessons safety I think as long as they're not the ones doing the damage they're covered.

Yes, injuries are a risk of sport. But I don’t think the teacher should be saying that: it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if the pupils are told that injuries are “normal”, and play more roughly than they otherwise would. In my adult netball games, umpires say “tidy that contact up, we don’t want injuries”.

It reminds me of my university hall of residence, where they told us “vandalism happens, and you’ll collectively be charged for it”. Result? Vandalism. Lots of it. Axe presented to vandal on a golden platter.

The more skilled a player, the less likely there are to be injuries. Teeth are my big worry so I always buy custom fitted mouthguards.

Trewser - these were 7 year olds. I once did a calculation incorporating the longer day than state schools and the longer hols than state school to determine how long they spent on academic work. The state school was the winner.

However, the really important thing about the school was that Maths was significantly behind the tiny local primary he attended next.

At state secondary and top independent sector school locally, 2 times per week sport is the norm. I don't doubt it would be more at the 'day and boarding' minor public school here but they offer sports scholarships and the top local independent (one of the top in the country) does not.

I do like sport and my son does plenty of after school but he's academic so what he looks for is different.