Should sports day be optional?

Please think others outside your child and their experience, and consider that for some kids who struggle academically they also find sports day an additional struggle and humiliation.

Starting flags need to be waved, older children can present prizes or medals to younger ones, there can be a range of sports offered.

When I was at school you were ranked in your class in every subject, and the whole class knew where everyone was ranked - so sports day absolutely was a chance for the sportier kids to receive their ranking.

Obviously that doesn’t happen now, but I do think there is still value in the experience of doing something you don’t necessarily want to do, but doing it to the best of your ability. I used to be terrified of doing presentations at work, but I faced up to it and gradually got better. That is a very public experience. Confronting challenges, facing fear, that’s how we grow.

Dyspraxic and autistic DS was forced to do a skipping race in Yr4 or Yr5 with all his NT classmates. The next year he wasn't feeling great so I didn't think twice about keeping him off.

Sports day should be fun and should encourage kids to love sport - otherwise what's the point? Unfortunately for many kids it is shit, especially if you have SEN.

Humiliating yourself in front of your whole school as well as all their parents is not teaching resilience - and people are incredibly misguided if they think it is.

It's not a good idea to always protect kids from failing. Failing is part of life and teaches resilience.

My teenage son came last in many races in primary school as well as never being good at sport but he's very academic and recently finished top in his school for his maths A level mock. He's also great at music and acting (hasn't always been but he worked hard).

I was thinking the other day how good it was he also had the experience of failing at stuff. It's not good to completely protect kids from ever failing as it isn't realistic for adult life. He'll be more resilient because he hasn't always found things easy.

It's one day, at worst it will be a bad memory. It's not just running, it's other sports, they won't come last in all of them.

I think fitness is so important, but sports day puts people off more than en encourages it

Not all kids love to be watched- like the nativity and Christmas show

@Halloumidays sporty kids 'have their moment' every PE lesson, why does there also need to be sports day?

I think sports day should be optional with the other option being in class. The same as the nativity and any other show and tell spectacle.

PE should be compulsory and a daily activity.

Yes, it should be optional.

It's taken 5 years with competent PE teachers to get ds past the misery that primary school sports day did.

We didn't do any real sports on sports day. It was more like taskmaster type silly games.

For some kids who struggle academically it’s the only thing they are good at. Let them have their moment! If my daughter was judged on her sports performance she’d be top of the class, as it is she’s at the bottom every single day except for one. So she feels like some of your kids do on sports day every single day bar one!
Please think about others outside your child and their experience, and maybe explain, as we do that for some kids this is one of the few things that makes them feel ok about themselves.

I hate this comparison nobody holds up SATs results and makes kids stand in order from highest to lowest mark…

and the kids don’t run in private where nobody can see….

the two things are nothing alike

Nope, absolutely not. I will never teach my kids to run away from their problems. I tell them to go out there and give their absolute best, if that’s what they do and they come last I’m proud of them, if they win I’m proud of them and the same for anything inbetween. You know what, they’ve won things at sports day and they’ve come last in things at sports day and they’ve done it with a smile on their face. It’s the same with anything, they don’t have to be as good at maths or spelling as their friends, as long as they give it their best.

Sports days have so many benefits for some children but not all. There you go, fixed it for you.

Childhood is about learning harsh lessons in a safe and fun environment.

Interesting take on what childhood is about.

Didn’t do any of that for my dyspraxic autistic daughter. It traumatised her.

Sports days have so many benefits:

1. It teaches children to have a growth mindset as they'll see how much they improve with a bit of effort
2. It teaches them how to be a good winner and loser...and not to cheat. Children should learn how to be kind, good sportsmen and cheer on their peers.
3. It tells them that it's best not to live in a comfort bubble. They may even surprise themselves. This will help.them in other areas of life such as academics
4. It gets kids away from screens. Exercise gets overweight kids moving. It improves mental health. Failure in front of peers is good motivation to train and improve.
5. Sometimes a job involves things you don't enjoy but you need to do to for the greater good or long term plans. Best to harness that lesson early so you don't wimp out of that presentation to the CEO when it really counts!
6. Childhood is about learning harsh lessons in a safe and fun environment. Better then than later in life. It gets much harder. I see lots of gen X in the workplace with so much fear as they haven't learnt to embrace failure.
7. Compulsory sports is a big thing in the independent school system. State parents should want their kids to have the same advantages. It's that grit that gets kids good universities and good jobs.
8. It encourages team building and teamwork skills.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing my son's primary school does a day like this. They call it a sportathlon and the parents don't come, all I know is to send him in in his PE kit on date X and that he'll be having fun playing games all day.

But after that they do a traditional sports day!

For those saying it teaches valuable lessons: Please tell me how many adults are being humiliated in public by people in authority.

It is not acceptable to force anyone into public humiliation, especially kids.

I don’t think it should be optional. There might be merit in not inviting parents etc to spectate - we don’t watch them all do maths and see who’s best at it!

Or it should be done in a way that doesn’t “show them up” if they’re not sporty, certainly at primary age.

Excellent post!

Totally right.

I actually think that a better life lesson to instil in kids is that they don't have to do things they don't like doing, especially if those things are pointless bullshit that doesn't benefit them. They will get much further in adult life if they learn to recognise the pointless bullshit from the stuff that matters (to them), and be able to discard the former.

I was neither a sporty kid nor a team player and I tended to just refuse to take part in Sports Day. When I was very young I'd take my book along and just sit at the side and glare at any adult trying to jolly me into participating. When I was a teenager I'd either walk the cross-country with my friends and rock up at the finishing line three hours after everyone else, or just skive completely. Just didn't care.

Twenty years on I run 20km twice a week - school PE can take zero responsibility for this - and sometimes I encounter school cross-country kids and laugh inside because I still identify with the ones slouching sulkily at the back.

But yes, bugger resilience. Do as much as you enjoy as possible and as little of the other stuff. You only have one life.

Everyone does have to do PE, sports day is different. I genuinely think those who say it’s good for kids to exhibit their lack of ability, not just in front of classmates but also in front of a group of unknown adults and the rest of the school have absolutely no idea about how to build confidence in children. Nobody is reading out the results of the maths exam to that audience, or pointing out that little Jimmy can’t behave as well as everybody else. It’s cruel, and don’t imagine the kids don’t feel it.

Plus, as pp’s have pointed out, it can be done in a way which includes everyone while still celebrating the sports stars

This is utter shit. One serious lesson I did learn from this eventually is that lots of twats will keep on banging on about "having to do stuff you don't like" as if it's some kind of virtue to put up with all kinds of pointless shit when it really isn't.
I've faced up to.a lot of challenges and I don't lack resilience, but being called useless for being shit at sport didn't help a bit with any of that.

well in my experience, the kids asked eg to sing solos etc are the ones who are good at it, or at least the ones who want to. Individual sports are absolutely not the same as singing/acting in a group