A health questionnaire for your classes, ready to copy.

A health questionnaire is not a medical assessment, and a class teacher is not in a position to give one. What it does is simpler and more useful: it tells you, before the class, that the person on mat four had knee surgery in the spring, that someone else is twenty weeks pregnant, and that a newcomer has never done a class like yours. You can then offer an alternative, place someone where you can see them, or have a quiet word before you start.

It also gives the client a moment to think about whether a class suits them, and a clear prompt to check with a professional when they are unsure. Check too whether your insurer, the venue you hire or a professional body you belong to expects you to ask health questions, and in what form – their wording takes priority over any template.

“PAR-Q” is short for Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire. The version in use today is the PAR-Q+, “The Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire for Everyone”, published by the PAR-Q+ Collaboration on its official site, eparmedx.com. The 2025 version runs to four pages. Page one has seven yes-or-no general health questions; anyone who answers yes to one or more of them goes on to the follow-up questions on pages two and three. The Collaboration also offers an official online version of the PAR-Q+ that clients complete themselves, and a follow-up online programme, the ePARmed-X+. The PAR-Q+ declaration says a clearance is valid for up to 12 months and stops being valid if the person’s condition changes.

The PAR-Q+ comes with clear reuse terms, and they matter if you take bookings online:

• The form itself says you are encouraged to photocopy it, but “you must use the entire questionnaire and NO changes are permitted”.
• The Collaboration’s official forms page says the forms must remain unaltered and may not be incorporated into electronic surveys or derivative materials without its express written consent.

So if you want to use the PAR-Q+, download it from eparmedx.com and use it whole, as published – for example on paper at a first class – or ask the Collaboration for permission before putting it online. Do not retype its questions into your booking form.

The questions below are not the PAR-Q+ and do not repeat its wording. We wrote them for yoga, pilates and group fitness classes, where the teacher mostly needs to know about injuries, pregnancy, heart and other health conditions, dizziness or balance, and experience. They have not been tested or validated, so if an insurer or professional body asks for the PAR-Q+ specifically, use that.

One question about experience, six yes-or-no questions, one open question for detail, an emergency contact and a consent tick box. Replace the square brackets, remove questions you would not act on (a class for over-60s may not need the pregnancy question), and add any your insurer or venue asks for.

Health questions – [Studio name]

Before you join a class, please answer these questions so your teacher can help you practise safely. Your teacher is not giving medical advice. If you are not sure whether a class is right for you, check with your doctor, physiotherapist or midwife first. If anything changes before a class, please tell your teacher.

1. How much experience do you have of [yoga / pilates / this type of class]?
   New to it / Some experience / I practise regularly

2. Do you have an injury, or have you had an operation, that still affects how you move?
   Yes / No

3. Do you have a heart condition, high blood pressure or another long-term health condition that exercise can affect – for example asthma, diabetes or epilepsy?
   Yes / No

4. Has a doctor, physiotherapist or midwife advised you to avoid or limit any kind of exercise?
   Yes / No

5. Are you pregnant, or have you had a baby in the last [six months]?
   Yes / No

6. Do you take any medicine that affects how you feel when you exercise – for example it makes you drowsy or light-headed?
   Yes / No

7. Do you get chest pain, dizzy spells or faint, or is there anything else that affects your balance or makes getting down to and up from the floor difficult?
   Yes / No

8. If you answered yes to any question, what should your teacher know? You can also tell us in person before the class.
   [Space for your answer]

9. Who should we contact in an emergency? Please give a name and phone number.
   [Name and phone number]

10. I agree that [Studio name] may use my answers to these questions to keep me safe in class, as explained in the privacy notice. I can ask for my answers to be deleted at any time. If you would rather not tick this, leave the health questions blank and talk to your teacher before the class.
   [Tick to agree]

Why it is written this way: yes-or-no questions are quick to scan before a class, and the detail sits in one place, question 8. The questions ask about effects – “still affects how you move” – rather than for diagnoses, so people tell you what matters for the class, not their medical history. Consent is a separate tick box, because health answers need a clear, specific agreement (see below).

A yes is not a reason to turn someone away. It is a reason to read their answer before the class and, where it helps, to talk.

• Read the answers before people arrive, not at the door with a queue behind them.
• Ask in private. A quiet “I saw your note about your shoulder – anything I should avoid?” goes a long way. Never discuss answers in front of the class.
• Offer options you can actually teach: an alternative position, a prop, a lower-intensity version, a place near the front.
• Suggest professional advice when you are unsure. If an answer describes something outside your training, it is reasonable to ask the person to check with their doctor, physiotherapist or midwife before their next class. That is a safety decision, not a diagnosis.
• Keep your response consistent. Treat similar answers in the same way, and make a short note of what you agreed if it affects future classes.

This page is general information for teachers, not medical advice. It does not replace your training, your insurer’s requirements or advice from a health professional.

Answers about injuries, conditions, medicine and pregnancy are health data, and health data is one of the special categories in Article 9 of the UK GDPR. Processing it is prohibited unless one of the conditions in Article 9(2) applies. This is a short summary for a small studio, checked on legislation.gov.uk and ico.org.uk on 14 September 2026; it is not legal advice.

Two reasons, not one

The ICO’s guidance on special category data says you need both a lawful basis under Article 6 and a separate condition under Article 9, and that you should decide and document the condition before you start collecting. For a class business, the condition that usually fits is Article 9(2)(a): the person “has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes”. That is why question 10 is a tick box of its own, with the purpose written out, rather than a line buried in your booking terms. Its checklist also asks you to consider whether you need an appropriate policy document or a data protection impact assessment.

Ask only what you will use

If you would not change anything in a class because of an answer, do not ask the question. Fewer questions mean less sensitive data to protect, and people answer a short form more carefully than a long one.

Tell people plainly, and let them change their mind

Your privacy information should say that you collect health answers, why, who sees them and how long you keep them – the ICO checklist asks for specific information about special category data. People can withdraw consent at any time, so make it easy: an email address is enough. Here is wording to adapt:

Your health answers – [Studio name]

Why we ask: we use your answers to plan and adapt classes so you can take part safely. We do not use them for anything else, and we never use them for marketing.

What we need from you: answering is your choice, and we will only use your answers with your agreement, which you give by ticking the box on the form. If you would rather not write something down, tell your teacher in person.

Who sees them: [your teacher and the studio owner]. They are stored in our booking system, [BookBookNow], which holds them for us and does not use them for anything else. We do not share them with anyone else unless there is an emergency or the law requires it.

How long we keep them: [while you attend our classes and for [12 months] after your last class]. After that we delete them.

Your rights: you can ask to see, correct or delete your answers, or withdraw your agreement, at any time by emailing [email address]. Withdrawing does not affect how we used your answers before. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Decide how long to keep answers, then do it

There is no set retention period in the law. Pick one that matches how you use the answers, write it down, and put a reminder in your diary to delete or anonymise old records. Keep the answers where only the people who need them can read them – not in a shared spreadsheet, a group chat or a notebook left in the hall.

Paper forms at the door get filled in against a wall and read after the class has started. Asking as part of booking means the answers are there before anyone arrives. If you take bookings with BookBookNow, booking forms are on every plan, and the questionnaire above fits them question for question.

• One form, many classes. Build the form once under Forms in your admin and tick it on each class or appointment that should ask it. Workshops and one-to-one sessions can use a different form.
• Help text under a question. Each question can carry a short line of help, such as “Only answer yes if it affects you now”.
• Answers stay with the booking. You read them on the booking before the class, and the bookings spreadsheet has one column per question.
• Asked on every booking. The form appears each time someone books, so a new injury or a pregnancy shows up on the next booking rather than months later.
• Erasure in one step. When a client asks you to erase their data, anonymising them removes their name, contact details, your notes and their form answers, while past bookings stay as anonymous records. The clients and data protection guide explains access, correction and erasure requests.

Booking forms collect answers. They are not a health records system, and a few things you might expect are not there.

• No signatures or uploads. There are no e-signatures and no file uploads, so a client cannot attach a doctor’s letter. Consent and acknowledgements are tick boxes.
• No clinical or medical records. If you run physiotherapy, sports therapy or other treatment that needs proper clinical notes, use a system made for that.
• No automatic deletion. Answers are kept with each booking until you anonymise the client. Your retention period is yours to apply, so put the reminder in your diary.
• No answer-only permissions. Anyone on your team who can open bookings can read the answers on them, so decide who gets a login with that in mind.
• No client health profile. Answers belong to each booking, not to a record that updates over time, and returning clients answer again rather than editing earlier answers.
• Not the PAR-Q+. We do not supply the PAR-Q+ as a booking form. If you need it, use the official version from eparmedx.com as its terms allow.