DD is starting a petition at the school with her friends

[EmmaMackenzie42]

Hi, this is my first time posting but I've been on Mumsnet for a while, and I've found lots of things useful on this website :)

So this all started when my eldest daughter (14 years old) didn't get into the netball team (there are only 15 places in each year, including subs, out of the hundreds of girls in the school). I've realised that the boys in her school have plenty of sports teams (football, rugby, basketball, cricket, tennis, even table tennis etc.). The only other technical girls sport is X-country (that is unisex, but it only happens once a year).

She wanted to start a petition along some of her other friends to make more girls sports teams and it has got quite a few signatures so far from several girls and even a few boys. They are also holding an additional petition to have an end-of-year school prom following exam season; thst has garnered a similar number of signatures.

The school has claimed it will consider the prom (but no actions have been done so far), and they also said they wouldn't create more girls sports teams because "not enough girls would sign up/ want to play for the sports teams".

I am in full support of my DD and her friends, and I love her very much. I came on here hoping for online support to put pressure on the school to create more girls' sports teams (and the EOY prom of course! :) ).

I’m not surprised your daughter is annoyed. Seems very unfair that the boys have many more options. And also that netball is only available to girls who make the team. After school clubs should be available to anyone who wants to play the sport, and then team practice should be in addition to that.

And this is where mothers can also step in and volunteer to coach some of the girl sport teams.

Firstly I'd be interested to know where the school has got their data that girls are not interested in sport? Is this current or historical?

It might be worth your dd doing a sample survey to evidence interest.

Id challenge the school on what they are doing to encourage girls interest in sport. For example what is on the curriculum to normalise women in sport, do they celebrate female sporting achievements in school. Do they do girls sports events as one offs. Do team events in pe?

Do they have an equal number of boys and girls interested in joining sports clubs.

Your daughter would possibly be better off starting with a survey to find out how many female students would commit to joining a sports club, how often, when, which sport etc.

Once she has done this she could present her findings to the school with evidence that take up of these clubs would make them worth while.

Your daughter would possibly be better off starting with a survey to find out how many female students would commit to joining a sports club, how often, when, which sport etc.

I agree. The petition has shown support for the idea and if she can nail down the specifics then that might go a long way to convincing them.

Football is a good one as female sport should be riding high on the back of the World Cup and Euros and there is no real reason they can't just do this at the same time as the boys.

I think your DD has a valid point and the petition is a good start in terms of opening up a dialogue with the school - who sound open to ideas.
Is there a student council? Ask for this to be raised.
Maybe it would be helpful to have a student survey to find out exactly what sports there are pupils keen for where there's no provision. But maybe couched in terms of what could be made available (at least in theory).
This is also going to depend on what facilities that are available at the school and staff available to lead it.
Regarding a prom - is this for yr11? There's nothing to stop the students organising their own. DD's former high school will only organise a yr13 prom. So a group of girls got together and organised their own prom (with a bit of parental support) and they had a great time.

LittleOwl153
Maybe the girls need to turn up to football practice, basketball etc and if they have enough for a team they should ask to be coached along side the boys...

This really is the best option I think, and will make it very difficult for the school to reasonably deny them joining in.

The girls will need to be organised though, and make sure enough of them turn up. Maybe pick one sport to start with, get a core number of keen girls involved whilst still looking for newbies and try to gain the support of the coach.

Anybody can bring problems to the table but its the person who also brings solutions that gets results. What have you or your daughter done about finding adults who will take responsibility for all of the arrangements that goes with health and safety, safeguarding, practice nights, transport, choosing the team, choosing the reserves, dealing with upset players who don't get picked, dealing with upset parents whose child didn't get picked, joining league tables etc etc.

I agree @flotsomandjetsome . She needs to ensure it isn't girls saying more sports are wanted just from n equality point of view There needs to be sufficient girls to make a team.
May also be worth 'catching' the y7s into this who will be more used to teams from primary.

Surely for sports such as tennis or table tennis they only need a minimum of two girls to make a “team” who can then be coached at the same time as any boys teams. If they get more girls signing up then there is clearly a need and an interest and the school needs to find a way to accommodate them.

She could approach the PE dept and see if they'd help set some up. It would require enough of the girls to turn up and for the female PE staff to stay late and help out. I suspect that asking the male staff to take charge may have safe guarding issues fir the girls and for the staff.

No that isn't her problem. The school is providing way more sports for the boys. They should be offering up equally even if more interest from boys means more boys are then run. It is mainly PE staff who run after school sports after all.

Why should the girls have to put in all that work when the boys have it done for them? Maybe all teams in the school should be cancelled until the pupils who want the team have got their heads around what's required for safeguarding?

Or perhaps, the PE staff who already have the ability to do this (and have been doing for the boys) could instead split their time more equally between the girls and boys?

I suspect that the male PE staff are running most of these. Perhaps it's time for the female PE staff to be more responsive and help supervise some sports. Perhaps just now they have netball because that's the only sport their female PE teachers is willing to cover.

Good for her! The schools arguments are ridiculous. For most of those sports the girls could train alongside the boys so wouldn't need any extra teachers- it's not as if there should be any contact in table tennis or cricket ffs, or even basketball.

Can she do an online poll about what sports the girls would like to do given the chance? Then she could say "look you only need 5 for a five a side football team and I've got 22 girls already saying they'd want to join."

The poster who suggested asking other local school what they have is a good idea too, presumably the school won't want to be embarrassed as the only school in the county that doesn't offer any sports for girls.

Depends how far you want to take it but this is also the sort of thing that would be catnip for the local newspaper/daily mail for a slow news day-again schools trying to demonstrate their engagement to local councils/offstage aren't going to want negative publicity.

The report of the most recent school inspection should be publicly available- see what that says about sports provision/pupil engagement -if it's anything other than excellent well here is a great opportunity to improve it!

Can she ask to attend the next governors meeting to discuss her petition? Governors should be trained in equality diversity etc are often very experiencrd and presumably the school head won't want to be shamed in front of them for sexism! If the school don't let her attend the governors details should be available on the website or via the council, she could write to them.

Why should the girls have to put in all that work when the boys have it done for them? Maybe all teams in the school should be cancelled until the pupils who want the team have got their heads around what's required for safeguarding?

Or perhaps, the PE staff who already have the ability to do this (and have been doing for the boys) could instead split their time more equally between the girls and boys?

Exactly!

Or perhaps, the PE staff who already have the ability to do this (and have been doing for the boys) could instead split their time more equally between the girls and boys?

Including supervision of the girls changing rooms?

I agree this is a brilliant idea. If the school then refuses "because they are girls" then that is clear cut discrimination.

Well, perhaps the female PE teachers can manage the supervision. They apparently have so little else to do given there's only netball and netball is the only sport they are capable of teaching (according to some here it's all they can manage to teach anyway)

Presumably the netball training occurs at the same time as some of the sports boys are allowed to play anyway, this the female staff are already supervising the changing areas.

why do people put so many barriers in the way of female sport?

Well, perhaps the female PE teachers can manage the supervision.

Perhaps they don't want to. Some may want to get out to pick up their own kids.

Sport should be available but downgrading the boys access isn't the correct thing to do. You need more female led coaching so they really need to approach the head of PE to see if she can arrange coaching cover for other sports.

So they don't want to do their job...? Excellent. Says it all about the state of female sport!

Funny how there are no problems getting staff to supervise the boys.

But they are doing their job.
They don't want to volunteer for the extras that not only get them more grief but can interfere with their actual job.

But once again we have the usual.
Take it away from the boys.
And a group of people that expect someone else to do the work for nothing.

Is staying after hours part of their job? Do they get paid for this time or is it voluntary? I always thought that running out of hours things like sports was up to the individual teachers.