First time 'Sports Day' - how does it work?

[IamAporcupine]

DS in in Reception and is having his first sports day next week.
He has hyperlax joints and is very clumsy and dis-coordinated. He loves running, jumping, etc but he does struggle.
He is mortified because he cannot rope skip.
Does he have to do it?

[GreatWhites]

I promise you that very few children in Reception can rope skip.

Please do send him to school and encourage him to take part.

We will always make adjustments for children who struggle.

[IamAporcupine]

That was what I thought, I am sure he would not be the only one. But he is a perfectionist too and tends to get anxious about stuff like this.
I will encourage him anyway
Thanks

[BubblesBuddy]

Quite a lot of schools do a round robin type sports day where children do various activities against personal targets. So there should be no worry at all if this is the type of sports day it is because it is not obviously competitive. You can ask what they propose. If you are at an independent school, just wait for the competive parents who will do anything to get their child to win. I too witnessed awful parents' races. Avoid!

[chickenowner]

In my experience (Early Years Teacher) very few Reception age children can skip properly, they just run holding a skipping rope!

If you are worried though, speak to the teacher about sports day. Schools run sports day in many different ways so it's not really possible to answer your question definitively, but I would be amazed if not being able to skip was a problem.

I hope that he, and you, have a lovely sports day!

[smellyboot]

No skipping at our school - not reception child I know can skip!!!
Running races, sack race, egg & spoon etc - all very non competitve

[Hullabaloo31]

My lad is one of the older ones in his reception class and he can't rope skip. I think only a couple of the girls can out of 30 kids.

[Charmatt]

If the school know your child well they will make adjustments accordingly.

When my son was in KS1 he had lots of physical and learning needs and they created a crawling race that he won. He was chuffed to bits!

[MyHairNeedsASnip]

We had a sprint, throwing a foam dart thing and jumping over an obstacle as many times as possible in 30 seconds. It was short and sweet.

[IamAporcupine]

I came to update and found loads of posts I had not read - thank you all!

There was no skipping, just a bit of running, ball throwing, goal scoring, long jumping and other simple stuff. He really enjoyed it!

[slightlyglitterbrained]

That's rubbish Miaow. DS's sports day had them moving between races in groups, so one lot would be doing sack race while others were doing egg and spoon, and so on. So it was definitely more about all taking turns at different fun activities than "winning" and they enjoyed it.

[smellyboot]

Miaow Ive never heard anything like it - Id be on the war path as so so wrong

[IamAporcupine]

Yes, ours was like slightlyglitterbrained describes. Eight groups and eight 'stations'. It didn't feel competitive in a bad way, they were all just enjoying the games together.
Having said that, now that I think about it there seemed to be some very competitive parents!
Anyway, overall, it was much better that I expected it!