Back to School: Sainsbury’s Inclusive PE Training can change students' lives
It’s the time of year when the shops are full of Back to School items, with teachers, parents and pupils starting a new academic year.
The English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) has spoken to three wheelchair users who had different experiences of PE lessons in mainstream schools.
A 2011 survey featuring hundreds of disabled school children revealed that a third felt they did not participate in PE lessons as much as their non-disabled peers. Of those, 33% felt this was because of their impairment; for wheelchair users, it was 54%.[1]
The Sainsbury’s Inclusive PE Training, which EFDS oversees and promotes, is primarily designed to support PE teachers in mainstream schools to provide a high-quality PE curriculum for all, to prevent disabled pupils from feeling excluded and improve their lesson experience.
Wheelchair rugby player and coach Martin Beddis attended a mainstream comprehensive in the mid-1980s. “I have Cerebral Palsy, and when I was at school inclusion didn’t exist,” he told EFDS.
“Inclusive sport was non-existent. The school liked to put on PE classes in cross-country running, football, cricket, tennis and rounders. So no matter the sport I was not physically capable of participating.”
For Martin, whose participation in sport and physical exercise tailed off after school only to be readopted in later life, the consensus as he neared his O-Levels was that sport should play no further part in his curriculum.
“By the time it came to the final two years of High School it was agreed by all – the school, my parents, me – that whenever PE was on I would go to the library. For the final two years at school I didn’t bother turning up to PE lessons.
“No attempt was made to adapt PE for me, and the school in Barnsley itself wasn’t accessible.”
Such a lack of inclusion damaged his self-confidence at a time when his body, and disability, were still developing.
“At the time I hated it, being the only disabled kid in a school of 1,200.”
That sense of alienation and of difference affected Martin in the 1980s, but fast-forward a few decades and other disabled pupils are still feeling the same.
“I didn’t have a great time at the start of my school career, with fellow pupils not being very understanding of my disability and teachers not understanding that I could do sport, just in a different way,” explains Chloe Ball-Hopkins, a 19-year-old from Gloucestershire who attended mainstream secondary education in the 2000s.
“My impairment is muscular dystrophy - as I have got older it has affected me more and more.
“In my second year of secondary school in Gloucestershire I started to want to get involved in sport as a way of coping with my developing disability.
“I was 12 or 13 when I first tried wheelchair sports – I was in Year 8 at school. At that point I was still able to get up and out of my seat much more than I can do now. Other people at school struggled with the concept of someone being able walk and also be in a wheelchair. I received a lot of comments at school from people telling me I could either be disabled or non-disabled, not both.”
Chloe says that that lack of understanding extended to teaching staff.
“My PE teachers, because they saw that I could get up onto my feet, assumed I could do sport just as well as everybody else, rather than adapting it for me. I was told PE worked in black and white, so someone who wanted things modifying was too difficult a concept for them.
“There were times when I was told to get up out of my chair and join in with things like gymnastics, hockey and so on.”
These days there are approximately 900,000 disabled children aged under 16 in the UK, 7% per cent of the child population, and young disabled people are more likely to experience bullying.
This proved, sadly, to be the case for Chloe.
“If you’ve seen Little Britain, you’ll know the character Andy Pipkin, who uses a wheelchair but can secretly walk. I used to get called Andy all the time, because I could still walk but I had to use a chair. I was a fake, an Andy, and I had a lot of online bullying through social media.
“If my teachers had helped me with my PE earlier then some of the other issues that arose may not have. Ask anybody who is disabled who plays sport – it’s a really good coping mechanism. If my teachers had helped me, maybe the other stuff wouldn’t have happened.”
However, Chloe’s story is ultimately a positive one. Motivated to defy the teachers who told her sport wasn’t for her, and inspired by a day of wheelchair tennis experienced thanks to Active Gloucester, she took up tennis, basketball, track events and more recently archery.
“My passion for sport was always within me. My problem at school was confidence – my self-confidence took a knock and I hadn’t yet got my head around my disability, because it was evolving as I grew.
“Looking back on it it’s quite clear to me that my school wasn’t accommodating because they simply didn’t have the experience of working with someone like me. I had a rubbish time there, but I hope if nothing else that they learned from me.”
Fortunately, the difficult experiences of Martin and Chloe are not replicated across the board, and both recognise that the situation now in terms of inclusive PE provision within mainstream schools is much improved, thanks in part to development opportunities such as Sainsbury’s Inclusive PE being made available to teachers.
Chris Greenhalgh, a wheelchair basketball, rugby and tennis player, attended a school in Bolton in the 1990s and, despite being one of only a few disabled pupils, felt included and catered for.
“I stopped walking when I was nine or 10, because I have spina bifida. I was always going to stop walking, and I was using a chair full-time by the time I got to secondary school.
“The school did a great job for me. When I first got there I don’t think they knew what to do with me – they had had wheelchair users at the school before, but no-one that wanted to actively take part in PE.
“I came along, and fairly soon after I started they managed to find a bloke to come in once a week and play some wheelchair sport with me. He wasn’t a teacher, but he came over from Southport to do one or two hours a week with me.”
Not only did the PE department at his school in Greater Manchester provide specialist staff to teach Chris disability sport, but teachers made other lessons accessible to him by altering their equipment and facilities.
“In terms of adapting lessons, my teachers were excellent,” Chris says.
“They would modify equipment for me – I remember them cutting down a hockey stick in the woodwork shed so that I could use it in my chair.
“I got the impression that they were learning about inclusive teaching alongside me. No-one had done it before at the school, so there wasn’t a more experienced member of staff that they could consult for advice.”
All this adjustment and encouragement reaped success – Chris secured a C grade at PE GCSE, developing into an international athlete and representing Great Britain at three different World Cups playing three different sports.
Now, at 32 years old, he continues to travel across Europe playing wheelchair basketball for Oldham Owls, as well as wheelchair rugby for Leyland Warriors.
Looking back on his school days, how does Chris regard his PE experience?
“At the time I didn’t notice what the teachers were doing for me. I felt like everyone should feel, that I had as much right as anyone else to do PE at school.
“But now that I look back I realise just how hard people fought for me to be able to do what I wanted to do. Looking back, I wouldn’t have become a sportsman without them.
“Everyone should have the same opportunities, and now things are so much better than they were. There is expertise and training out there for teachers to utilise.
“For teachers, it’s just about a willingness to adapt. Anything’s possible.”
Get involved
- Do you struggle to adapt or simplify activities to ensure everyone is engaged in PE?
- Do you want practical ideas to help to stretch and challenge the more able?
- Can you identify any children that you struggle to engage or include?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions then Sainsbury’s Inclusive PE Training is for you.
Active Kids for All Inclusive PE, has been established through a £1m investment from Sainsbury’s. The programme is managed and delivered by a partnership of the key organisations for sport, young and disabled people in the UK; Disability Sport Northern Ireland, Disability Sport Wales, English Federation of Disability Sport, Scottish Disability Sport, supported by the British Paralympic Association and the Youth Sport Trust. To benefit from the final year of the Sainsbury’s Active Kids for All Inclusive PE Training Programme and receive your free place on a workshop or to find out about hosting your own workshop, please visit the programme webpage or contact EFDS via email ak4a@efds.co.uk or call 01509 22 77 51.
[1] Page 12, Whizz-Kidz Schools Consultation (2011) http://www.whizz-kidz.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-research
