To let Dd skive off tomorrow because of sports day?

Brilliant ideas there.

I completely agree with your last paragraph. And I think that voluntary participation would at least be a huge improvement on any compulsory ritual athletic events with dozens or hundreds of people watching.

The trouble is that even then, it singles out a particular group of kids for celebration that others don't get, and it takes up half a day or a day of school time (and an awful lot of organisational time and effort) for something with few tangible positive outcomes that couldn't be achieved in a lot of other ways. And while a lot of kids might enjoy aspects of the "sit and cheer on" role, it's basically a doss day chatting to your mates, if you're lucky.

Posters on these threads often say it's some kids' only "time to shine" and that that alone justifies the whole hoopla. But when does the star food tech or phonics or maths kid get to "shine" in front of all their friends, all the other kids, all the teachers, and maybe their parents and their friends' parents? Seems a bit of a thin consolation to say "Yes, Ricky always wins all the races and gets his "time to shine" where everyone has to watch him win stuff, but darling, he's a bit thick — while you'll probably be getting marvellous GCSEs in several years' time, and you'll get to open an envelope with your grades in! So, you see, it's only fair."

Cause that's what they mean, posters who talk about "time to shine". They seem to have this bizarre idea that academic ability and sporting ability are negatively correlated (it's actually the opposite) — and the second bizarre idea that everyone must do sports day so that those poor unfortunate bottom set kids can win some races, as compensation for having to study academic subjects they struggle with and being doomed to poor grades and thus lifelong failure or some shit.

Anyway, returning from that slightly elaborate tangent about the ugly and weird assumptions behind "time to shine"…

Yeah, if you're happy with multiple compulsory-attendance subject-stars celebration days every year, each focusing on a small number of children with a particular enthusiasm or skill at a particular subject while the others look on and make the appropriate responses, then I suppose at least that's fairer (though still tough on the kids who don't excel at any one particular thing). But I don't know how you'd justify the necessary admin and lost learning time, nor how you'd design a full-length public appreciation event for the kids who absolutely slay at close literary analysis, or computer science, or biology, or, I dunno, Latin.

Well maths is a bit more important in life than running the egg and spoon race.

With a child who hated sport and loved maths I eventually told the teacher that if one more child mocked my child's lack of sporting ability I had told them to reply in kind in the maths lesson. Amazingly after three years of hell the teacher managed to solve it. Strange that.

Similarly to you, I probably do more exercise now than a majority of the people in my class at school. Weight lifting and swimming are my main forms of exercise.
I loved swimming even when I was at school but we’d have 1 swimming PE lesson a fortnight and it was only during the winter. I know at some schools they don’t even do that.

That sounds so similar to what they did at my first primary school. I used to get really bad stitches when I ran, so had to slow down. As soon as I started running again, the stitches started. I ended up just walking. I’d come in last and by this point everyone had buggered off apart from one teacher waiting, who would then say, “come on” in a way that was obviously pissed off. I’d get teased about being slow.
Mum let me skip the last one before I changed schools.

Do you know what the funny thing is? I was probably the least active of my classmates at that age. Hated PE apart from swimming and I could outswim a lot of my classmates at even that age. Always been a distance swimmer. I still hate running now. I go to the gym at least 4 times a week now, sometimes 5. I bet I do more exercise than most of the people I was at school with.

I think we agree, maybe i didnt explain myself properly.
We should enjoy others accomplishments.
Havjng to compete with others for ego purposes is silly.
Yes theatre kids should have the same focus. Theres not a whole day rewarding them !

We dont force the whole school on stage to perform whenthey dont want to, why should we with sports

@Janedoe82

I don't think that's the flex you're thinking it is.

People like your daughter are the reason that I'm my son is now home educated. It's called bullying. It's not natural human behaviour. It's called being not very nice. I have 4 children and not one of them acts like this because they're nice children.

I really hope your daughter learns some empathy and that poor girl who is ostracised for not being sporty is ok.

what @Janedoe82 said. 100%

Actually no, this is not 'natural human behaviour', it's nastiness and intolerance of difference. Something that most parents wouldn't want to see their child displaying and would try to help them grow out of.

The parents who let their children opt out of inconsequential things that they'd find distressing are sending an excellent message. Conformity for the sake of conformity is wrong, and it's important to be able to evaluate something you don't want to do and decide whether there's a compelling reason to push yourself and do it anyway. Sometimes there is. Sometimes not.

(As for 'being a team player' I can tell you that the same 11 and 12 year olds nasty enough to judge someone for opting out aren't exactly going to be pleasant about someone who has a go but is terrible at it and lets the team down. If you're going to be judged like that anyway, best to avoid the public humiliation first.)

OP, I'm glad you and your daughter had a nice time!

Easily done

No don’t worry: I read it out if context of tgd later posts!

Callio I wasn't sure whether to quickly explain or not… but realised I couldn't work out a way to phrase it that didn't sound unintentionally sarcastic

Oh don’t worry: I’m following now! Is missed a couple of posts!

Is this an earthquake?

What brought me up short with rule following was that on 11th sept people beneath the impact zone were initially told to stay at their desks. Some thought fuck that and left immediately. We know what happened.

I don’t totally buy the “being a good loser” philosophy. Being an acceptable loser is necessary. I’m not sure being a good one is a skill to polish.

Yes definitely. Part of growing up and having appropriate boundaries is learning that sometimes, people and institutions will ask things of you that are of no benefit, that may even be harmful to you, and that you can totally fuck off with no consequences at all. DC need to know this.

Teaching children that they can never opt out is equally bad parenting.

Great update @Cadela glad you took her out instead, and your daughter had a wonderful time. How lovely, she will remember this when she's grown up, and smile.

For all those saying about teaching reslience etc - at what point do you teach your children that sometimes it's not worth following 'the rules'? As OP says, for things like dentists, exams etc, there is a purpose to it. Sports Day is not one of those things - no benefit at the end, no enjoyment during it.

Exactly. Teaching kids that you can't opt out, even when you clearly can with no detriment, is poor parenting.

Glad you had a lovely day OP. I made a promise to myself when I was in school that if I ever had a children who wanted a note to be excused from PE I’d provide one. School PE destroyed my love for sport. I was pretty rubbish but I enjoyed games like hockey , rounders and netball. What I hated was the sheer humiliation of the teachers laughing at me and the god awful kit we wore. Team picking was also horrid. Sports day was just another level of humiliation as people lined up to watch you fail. I could blend in during team sports.

Well done on taking her out, OP!

I did the same with my son after the first 2 sports days. He has dyspraxia, low tone, and was always last. He hated it - so I always took him out and on a day trip somewhere else.

For all those saying about teaching reslience etc - at what point do you teach your children that sometimes it's not worth following 'the rules'? As OP says, for things like dentists, exams etc, there is a purpose to it. Sports Day is not one of those things - no benefit at the end, no enjoyment during it.

My son is currently doing a Masters, having funded it by working 12 hour factory shifts for over a year. Suffice it to say that skipping sports day has not had any ill effect on his work ethic or ability to move out of his comfort zone.

Ah yes, support work to make sure everything goes smoothly for the all-important sporty kids' ✨Time to Shine™✨.

When do the excellent runners and jumpers and throwers get to learn how fulfilling it is to spend a school day facilitating other people showing off how great they are?

I agree, hence my thought that you can be at sports day and participate by things such as putting out equipment, starting races, maybe greeting parents if they are there, those kind of things.

Bearing in mind that sports day is awful for a lot of ND kids, the odds of OPs DD being the only one to opt out seem pretty minimal.