Jewellery In PE Lessons

This information is from the Chelmsford Schools Partnership.

If you have any further questions please contact the headteacher.

Can pupils participate in PE if they wear Jewellery?

The National guidance has always been that no jewellery should be worn in PE and that includes swimming and physical activity. It is also not safe to cover ear-rings / studs / sleepers with tape. The reason is both because of the potential tearing of the ear lobe, but also the very slim chance that the post of the ear-ring could damage the neck which is where the brachial nerve is running directly to the brain. There are anecdotal cases of children wearing ear-rings / studs with plasters over being hit by a ball or coming off worse in a collision and having nasty injuries as a consequence.

Where an item of Jewellery cannot be removed then it is the adult teaching the group’s responsibility to try to establish a safe situation to enable participation by considering how, or if, the context can be made safe by amending the task, conditioning the activity or creating some other management strategy to make participation safe. Where safe participation cannot be assured then the pupil cannot take part in that element of the lesson.

Low risk is where children can work and be secure in their own personal space

This could be warming up, skills practices, observing and analysing, officiating, coaching.

Higher risk is where that personal space could be compromised … this could be by other participants or by equipment

This could be games activities where there are elements of ‘scrimmage’, gymnastics where children are close to each other or where the floor / equipment could come close to the ears, swimming, dodgeball ..etc.

Parents should be reminded that the school has the higher level duty of care and cannot be put in the situation of looking after their child without exercising that duty of care. It is dictated by national guidance and they need to comply. There have been awful cases involving jewellery in PE and physical activity and we are protecting against that happening. It is not just making the wearer of the ear-ring safe, so a parental disclaimer is rather inconsequential (it would not stand up in law either).We have anecdotal cases of ear-rings falling out and children needing tetanus injections because they then get a puncture wound having trodden on them in Gym. Similarly, we have had damaged swimming pool filters and children swallowing plasters when gasping for breath in the pool!