Withdrawing from PE lessons

[Geordie2Mam]

Its a long-winded post, so thanks in advance of you manage to stick with it.
My 14 year old, is struggling with PE. It has been an ongoing issue for over 1 year.
She does not get along with several of the PE teachers & the ones she does get on with, teach a higher level, so aren't available to her.
She has not done a full lesson in at least 6months due to ongoing issues.
The latest episode included a teacher saying that if she had forgotten her kit, then she would have to do participate with the boys PE lesson, to "make her feel as uncomfortable as possible".
We have emailed the school & are awaiting a reply. In the mean time we have said that we are not happy for her to participate in these lessons, until this is sorted out.
Our concern is that, these issues have been rumbling on for months now. Things improve for a short while & then we are back in the same situation. She is excelling in all other areas of her education.
Can we request that she is permanently removed from PE lessons? We're aware that it is a compulsory lesson, however at what point does her emotional wellbeing take precident? What happens for other pupils that just refuse to participate in certain lessons?

No.

The only subject that parental request can remove children from is RE.

What are the actual issues? At secondary most students are able to tolerate teachers they do not like.

if she has physical or other disabilities then it may be a different story.

She probably needs the exercise and she probably needs to learn that sometimes you just have to put up with stuff you don’t like.. and remember your kit.
Honestly, you’re doing her no favours in the long run .

She doesn’t have to “get on with” any teachers, she just needs to follow the lesson like everyone else.

Lots of kids don’t necessarily ‘get on’ with every teacher, but they just have to put up with it. It’s an hour or so a week, it’s not exactly a hardship is it?

If there's a chance it will prevent her going into school full stop then they need to let her miss it.

Missing exercise is bad. Failing GCSE's because she won't go to school because of PE would be worse. Almost been there and nearly did that with one DC.

Op needs not to give her the option of “not going into school full stop” 🙄

I was able to drop French lessons years ago as I was really struggling with it.

im not sure if you can just opt out of lessons.

my son who’s in primary school opts out of all plays, performances and assembly’s.

Why do they allow him to treat these things as optional?

She won't have a choice if her child starts falling apart because of PE 🙄.

He has SEN and those things cause a lot of anxiety which I have to deal with at home

This. @Geordie2Mam so the teacher has stated that they said that? The latest episode included a teacher saying that if she had forgotten her kit, then she would have to do participate with the boys PE lesson, to "make her feel as uncomfortable as possible".

She doesn’t want to do it. Why assume having to will result in her falling apart, ffs?!

I hated PE at school. Absolutely detested it and dreaded every lesson. Never occurred to me ( or my parents) that it was optional. I just endured it. Surely most kids have a certain lesson/ teacher/ subject they really don’t like. I thought that was normal.

It really depends what the ongoing issues are.

If your DD is making something of nothing and basically just doesn’t like PE then you will meet resistance from the school, and rightly so.

If there is some underlying issue and she needs support then you can pursue this.

We had DS permanently removed from PE for the entire duration of secondary school, and he then withdrew from biology and chemistry for y11. There were specific problems which we worked with the SENCO on and by then he was a school refuser so it was part of a managed strategy to get him into school as much as possible.

No idea what to do with school but consider getting her involved with active stuff outside of school (swimming, climbing, roller hockey) whatever works to get her active. I was put off all exercise and sport due to shitty pe teachers and wished i had more encouragement to see exercise not just as an embarrassing torture where you'd get berated every time.

I would certainly question the school about the “make her as uncomfortable as possible” line.

She needs to attend her PE lessons with the correct kit and equipment like she does for all other lessons.

I agree with those who ask what the actual issues are @Geordie2Mam. The only one you specify is the teacher’s comment which is obviously not acceptable – but did they actually say that? Have they accepted that they did?

Not liking teachers – well that’s just how it is in school, as others say. Most students will have teachers they like more and less. Not OK just to opt out.

OTOH if there are other issues at play – your DD is ND for example and there are sensory issues around wearing her PE kit, just to think of one thing – then it may be worth exploring some reasonable adjustment with the school. But we cannot say if that is the case from the info you have provided.

In general it’s not practical for DC to opt out of lessons – where would they go? They need to be supervised somewhere.

To many parents, it must seem quite straightforward to remove a child from a lesson they have no investment in and which will have no future negative impact. In practice, it’s not that simple. There would have to be somewhere for them to go and be supervised.

Unless there is something the OP hasn’t mentioned, which would alter the case, sometimes people just have to put up with some things. My child chose Geography as a GCSE option, because he liked the teacher in Year 9. Of course, he got a different teacher and they really didn’t get on and he basically wasted a GCSE. It mattered, but not from the perspective of impacting on his future.

What comment the teacher made and in what context, should be investigated, but otherwise I think the school might push back against withdrawing her completely.

They shouldn’t be making her feel uncomfortable but then you can easily prevent that happening by making sure she is going with the right kit.

What does not getting on with the teachers look like? Why isn’t she completing her lessons, is she being asked to leave due to bad behaviour or is she walking out? What is actually happening in the lessons?

What is her specific need and have the school tried to meet it within her normal lesson? Dd1 “opted” out of MFL in y8 onwards and had extra “learning support” but the was the extra English support would overall be beneficial and she was never going to “get” French and would drop it after y9 anyway. She has a diagnosed learning disability. If there isn’t an actual issue beyond not liking the teacher then I don’t think it’s appropriate. If there is an issue due to a disability or specific learning need then they need to try to meet that within the lesson before ditching out altogether. (With dd she was in bottom set French and had “language club” one lunchtime a week but as she can barely spell basic words in her native language it was decided that concentrating on her English skills to give her an overall better chance across all her subjects was better for her than trying to get her to pass a vocab test in a second language).

His GCSE was “wasted” (so presumably he failed the exam) because he didn’t get on with the teacher?
How does that work, because it doesn’t actually make much sense?

It's PE. Everyone hates it. Suck it up and get on with it.

It's a great lesson in resilience.

Everyone doesn't hate PE tho. IME (and my job as an MFL teacher involved talking to students about school subjects) it's one of the most popular school subjects.

Obvs not everyone likes it. But plenty do, a d it's much more inclusive as a rule than when I was at school.

What’s she going to do when she has a job and doesn’t like some of the coworkers and doesn’t want to do what the boss has told her?