How to handle sports day this year?

This is a very sensible answer.
It is very important to learn to be bad at something and to congratulate others gracefully.

My dd hated sports day and always stayed home that day, as did a few in her class. School made clear it wasn't compulsory and obviously not for everybody. Traditional sports day forced people who weren't good at physical activities to be there so that winners can win. At dd's school pupils were encouraged to enter races etc that they were good at or enjoyed. Likewise poetry or maths competitions. There was something for everybody but they weren't forced into it.

Hmmm no actually. Kids with SEN are given work to their ability, don’t have their results paraded in front of the whole school and parents and don’t have to perform in front of the whole school and parents so no it’s not the same- at all!

Yes exactly. They might come last but it doesn't need to matter to them but it does matter to some of the kids who get few opportunities to be the best at something.

I'd also caution that they might not always be the worst. My son was last at everything age 7. Now at 11 he's pretty fast (though still a slow starter). He's rubbish at the egg and spoon and the one where they have to go through hoops but he's looking forward to the running race.

It has actually been quite positive for his self esteem which I really didn't think would be the case.

Completely agree

Just keep them off. DS is dyspraxic and when at mainstream, I never, ever made him participate. It’s unnecessarily cruel to humiliate a reluctant child in public - I still hold a grudge against my rancid primary PE teacher who put me off exercise for years!

There are plenty of ways to move your body that are nothing to do with athletics.

Exactly! I'd have smashed a spelling test in front of the whole school but it would have been monstrously humiliating for the children with dyslexia

Beautifully put. I was academic. I couldn't run in a straight line to save my life and was so nervous on the starting line that I would shake. Makes holding the egg on the spoon quite difficult. I hated it/ dreaded it, but I loved the bits where we could cheer on other people who were racing . You learn more from your failures than you ever learn from your successes. Running away from things when they are hard is not a good lesson to teach. Sometimes we are first , sometimes we are last .When my sons ( now 30 and 32) were in Reception they had a friend who was outstanding in the classroom situation. She was hopeless at anything physical. Her mother decided that she was never doing sports day again after her failures at the first one. She tried ballet and horse riding. She was removed from those because she wasn't ever going to be an Olympic champion. If she couldn't succeed then she simply didn't do. She's 32 now too. She has very little resilience.

You’re part of the problem - people like you are why sports day is so humiliating for the unsporty, uncoordinated kids. Can you imagine being forced to participate in an activity you such at, with 30+ people staring and patronisingly cheering you as you come in last? These kids don’t want spectators.

But that's horrible. Ghastly. It's making me feel sweaty remembering it, and I left school a very long time ago. You don't want patronising cheers if you're last, you want everyone to turn around and leave you alone.

My school had a problem with bullying and sports day came with a delightful side order of whispers and giggles. As well as sporty girls' mums coming over to tell you how well you were doing, while sniggering. Of course we got bullied in class too, but so long as you didn't look like you were trying too hard at the work you were largely ignored.

But he didn't have to read in front of the entire school and all the parents.

Resilience can be learned in many ways. Public humiliation isn't one of them.

i change my answer to this.

if your children can be involved by handing out stickers, setting up the equipment, person who tells the team when to clap etc then that I can get on board with and that way your aren’t teaching your kids that if you don’t want to do something because it makes you uncomfortable then you don’t have to

It's good for children to have something physical they can learn and do, and keep doing throughout their lives. We all need to develop some physical skills - although we don't need to compete.

School sports is not that - I was terrible at team sports because I grew up in a place where all the other girls (so it seemed) played netball and/or hockey for local teams on Saturdays. I reckon some of them were born holding a netball or wearing shin pads!

I found my groove with the gym.

I wish that my school's PE had offered us a range of activities and taught us how to do things properly, rather than starting with competition from the first try at anything. And mockery if you failed.

So - can you take the initiative with your sons to find a physical activity they enjoy and can learn properly? Then school sports days are just another day, and they know that they're learning something else - which they enjoy - properly. I'm sure you could find some excellent non-competitive physical activities that could suit a hypermobile child.

A lot of community sports groups take teaching children proper form and training carefully, very seriously. For example, my gym (a private mainly weight lifting gym) has weight lifting and general functional fitness classes for DC from 8 or 9 years old. The instructor is amazingly well qualified and takes the training of DC in an age-appropriate way, really seriously.

I just feel that there's such a pervasive message that 'all children love PE' and sport is good for us that all the stuff around reasonable adjustments and adaptive learning and 'we know our children' fly out of the window when it comes to sports day.

@OldChinaJug you beat me to it with your suggestions, I agree with you.

Speak to the school.

I'd rather have a child in school with their friends than out but my school has supported occasional children with ASD (for example) being taken out for the half day if it's really distressing for them.

I have had a child who helps me 'steward' events and happily gives out stickers and celebrates their friends and enjoys the whole atmosphere but just doesn't feel able to take part.

There are many ways of taking part in the event without competing.

We are not all the same and shouldn't be treated 'the same'. PE is good for health and fitness but competitive events aren't necessary or appropriate for all.

We don't make everyone who learns a musical instrument perform in school concerts and we certainly don't make the ones who've never learnt or can't do it stand up and showcase their limitations to the world. We're not allowed to put academoc targets on the wall like we used to anymore because it's damaging to pupils' sense of sense and self esteem. But we still force all children to compete in sports regardless of their abilities or limitations. Why?

And, as a teacher, I disagree with that. There are ways of involving childen without humiliating them.

For some children, it's appropriate for them to be encouraged and included and taught resilience and it's the taking part that counts but, for some children, it's not.

Speak to the school. They will know your child and should be aware of what is appropriate for them.

Oh yes, well it did for dd. She is nearly 27 now. It made her cry due to the humiliation. I let her have sports days off at primary - they were better at secondary. It didn't stop her taking a first at Cambridge or being a teacher described as inspirational by Ofsted.

Our school does other events. If he hates it so much... Take him out and have a fun day

@LoveTKO
and you don’t think this makes it ten times worse? These are often the more academic and socially aware children who know fine well why the adults are clapping!

Exactly my experience too!

@DoRayMeMeMe your last point is quite worrying, a seven year old needs to learn to get on with it, even if he doesn't like it. That sounds like the mantra of a bully to me. Should people also just get on with racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, perhaps a bit if domestic violence, etc, with good grace?

No of course not, people need to co front the things that have the potential to harm them. Humiliation is one if them.

Everyone at my school always cheers on the kids who come last, they seem to get the loudest cheers to be honest, does this not happen?

I disagree entirely. I was hopeless at games and PE. I couldn't hit the ball, was always last and one of the last to be picked. It was absolutely soul destroying. With hindsight I was almost certainly dyspraxic. If anyone had told off a child for being bad at maths or unable to read or if another pupil had laughed at them, there would have been outrage.

It made my school days most unpleasant and the day I left school, I was resolute that nobody would ever make me.throw, hit or catch a ball ever again.

Paradoxically, it's the alpha, sporty girls who stuck in a rut and stayed local in fairly dead end jobs, recreating the monotony of their provincial childhoods.

My friends and I were known as "the drips", notably by the PE teacher also (who was utterly vile, had a man's hair cut and wore lace-ups and insisted she had to watch us naked in the shower to make sure we washed).

We were hopeless at PE and never got picked. One is now CEO of a hospital Trust having done degree nursing (she should have done medicine), one is a senior financial analyst in the Pensions Industry and I also broke away and developed a good, professional career.

I remain unconvinced that the school system for the under 18s works or values sufficiently the skills that make for successful, adult lives. I couldn't draw, write neatly, do games or sing - I recollect no encouragement at school. I went to grammar school and was unremarkable, neither top nor bottom.

At work, I flew, I am convinced it was because school didn't quite knock the stuffing out of me.

But struggling with reading isn't the same as struggling with PE/sports.
If a child isn't very good at reading the school isn't going to make them stand up in front of the school and all the parents to read a book.
If a child isn't very good at PE it's a case of oh never mind just embarrass yourself Infront of the school and all the parents.
I'd take them out for the day and have done this for my children, not every year, but there were a lot we did miss..
The other option is to talk to their teachers. Ask if they can only do a couple of events. If they say no, take them both out.