How to handle sports day this year?

I agree with this

There isn't an audience including other parents watching you do your exams. It isn't very public at all.

Everyone hates different things. Ritual humiliation is not being able to pass any of your exams, I literally couldn’t give a crap about running with an egg in your hand…

It’s not just about winning and losing. Just being outside in the field isn’t a good day for all the children. Some of them are going to get sunburns no matter how many times they reapply suncream. Some of them attract bug bites when no one else gets bitten. Some of them have horrible pollen allergies and are so loaded up on anti-histamines to try to survive the day outside that they can barely stay awake.

.

people need to appreciate that it is impossible for activities to be truly inclusive. Some of them are going to cause real stress, even if the vast majority think they are fun.

that doesn’t mean the school should never do anything other than keep the children sitting in a classroom. Variety is good. A bit of grace and understanding for the few children being put into uncomfortable or even unreasonable school days would go a long way

But the people not great at maths aren’t being out in a line up and being watched by everyone. There is a public humiliation aspect to sports day that can be actually traumatic. And I say this as mother of three who all quite liked sports day.

and being poor at maths doesn’t mean you won’t need to still learn maths. No one needs to be able to run 200m or jump hurdles.

exercise and physical activities are vital. Competitive sports aren’t

When will schools realise that many kids hate sport but are interested in fitness so dance classes, fitness classes and gym circuits are preferable to the god awful hockey, high jump, hurdles and 100m.

Not sure doing the school run is in any way comparable to the ritual humiliation of school PE or sports days.

It's just so public, that isn't the case with maths or English. It doesn't get announced or isn't broadcast who is last infront of the whole school of kids and parents.

I've mellowed now I'm onto my 3rd dc and I let her have the day off after a few traumatic years of her in tears before and during (ASD).
The teacher and TA are normally supportive with her but are both too busy on sports day to focus on her which is fair enough.

Sometimes the intention doesn't matter, it doesn't always make the child feel better.

Hmmmmm. My kid isn’t sporty either, they hate sports (as do I, secretly). I coach them that there are a) plenty of others who feel the same who also will not be winners of any race and that is ok and b) lots of sporty types aren’t in the top top set of English or maths, both skills that outweigh being good at PE. Ultimately doing things you don’t like builds resilience. I hate school runs and look at me, I’m on my way to collect my DC right now.

This is a much better arrangement

My child’s school wasn’t interested in discussing or listening and I know other parents who have had the same response from their children’s schools

Due to that, I let my child have the day off. That was better than my children learning that sport/exercise was a negative thing. My child is older now but does a lot of running, weights and swimming.

Sometimes you can opt of things and it’s for the best in the long term. Missing sports day doesn’t have to be a big deal.

School can be really hard. It sounds like your child has some physical reasons why sports day isn’t working for him - hyper mobility, height etc. For other subjects the school should be making adjustments to make the learning and activities accessible eg appropriate maths tasks, extra time in exams if you have dyslexia etc. I think it would be reasonable to ask what they could reasonably do to make this work as well as it can for your son in the same way as they would if he were struggling to access other subjects or activities and come at eg the photos idea from that angle. Sports day was always painful for my daughter for similar reasons so I hear you and I understand your conundrum. Hypermobility can be covered by the Equalities Act which schools must adhere to.

My daughter used to compete in kids triathlons and one year her friend (also 10) decided she would give it a go having done zero training, she could barely swim 200m and had never done open water swimming before, she didn't have a decent bike and on the day it got stuck in second gear. She had trouble in the transitions because her number was pinned through both sides of her t shirt. She was just starting the run when everyone else was finishing. The Marshall asked her if she wanted to skip the run or a lap of the cycling but no. When she came in everyone was really cheering her and they definitely weren't doing it in a pitying way. They admired her grit.

@Loveduppenguin gave a whole bunch of ideas upthread about how to make it an inclusive day for everyone rather than simply withdraw children from the day. Their line of reasoning was crystal clear if you read their posts.

It is a bad message to tell children they don’t have to do sport, exercise isn’t important or that if they don’t like something they can just opt out of it. Its a lot better to try out some of the ideas suggested by @Loveduppenguin and others up thread and discuss it with the school before taking the nuclear option.

Yep.

Also, in a classroom setting, if a child does make fun of another child for struggling with maths, it’s easier for the teacher to see it happening or for the child to tell the teacher and for the teacher to deal with it straight away.

In the chaos of sports day, the kids are all chatting, cheering etc, so if some of the children choose to make fun of others, it’s easier for kids to get away with it. It happened years ago when I was at school, it happened when my kids were that age and it’s still happening now.

I know so many people who were put off sport and exercise due to sports day and how PE lessons were/are conducted and it’s a real shame.

I played a few sports and was average at best at all of them. I was part of a group of friends who all excelled at sports so I always felt inadequate, there is something about the competitive aspect and the feeling of not being chosen that I think really affects a child. I remember my mother telling me, when I was a bit older in fairness, that even though they were naturally better than me in reality they were all fairly average and none of us, either them or myself, would be able to play sport professionally or even at university level. Your kids are probably too young g to appreciate this but it actually made me feel a lot better, I gave up teams sports in my teens but I do remember two of these "friends" (who had been quite competitive and rude to me at times when we played together) trying out for university teams and being rejected. I'm ashamed to say it made me feel quite smug. I'd try find a solution with the teacher or alternatively take them out for the day!

I think this is a great idea.

Completely agree. For some reason public humiliation is ok in sports. I disagree with this but my DCs school think it’s ok as some struggle with maths every day. Guess what? Some poor kids can’t do maths or sport. Some are good at both.

I asked why they don’t get all the DC to do a public spelling test and they said that would
be cruel. The irony.

Local primary does this too.

Local primary stopped parents going to sports day over covid and decided to keep it that way as kids were so much more relaxed, no tears, no kids being kept home.
Some parents were and are up in arms about not being allowed but school is putting kids first.

My DCs are in their 30s.
DC1 sports days were initially traditional style races with 1st, 2nd 3rd etc.
After about 3 years they changed style.
Children were put in teams made up of children from all year groups, picked at random. Each group carried out an activity, eg throwing balls into buckets and learned points. Somebody blew a whistle and the group moved to the next activity. Nobody had a clue who was winning until the very end.
Great for my non-sporty DC, not so great for the competitive types.

Then maybe sports day should be done differently because far too many children come out of school hating sport and feeling humiliated.

It doesn't matter what parents say or do, always coming last is going to feel shit, kids sniggering behind your back is going to feel shit and parents sympathy clapping/cheering is always going to feel patronising.

An ice lolly isn't worth it for such a shit day.

Also @SouthLondonMum22

I just don't buy that losing = humiliation. It's the wrong way to view sport and parents have a role to play in modelling this rather than avoiding getting involved.

That's not remotely comparable though. We're talking the whole school and parents, not just classmates in a classroom setting.

'Do your best' doesn't make up for such public humiliation, as many on this thread will attest to.