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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not want a move towards competitive sport in primary schools

205 replies

noseynoonoo · 13/08/2012 18:24

First off, this is not a political rant and I hope it doesn't turn into one.

I am so cheesed off about this: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19219942

The details are patchy but it looks on the surface that competitive sport such as football and netball are to be widely promoted - is there anything less motivating?

Football, is just too dull, kicking a ball around, usually with limited skill at primary level whilst netball involves 7 girls per team of which 2 stand still most of the time.

My daughter just wants to be active. I don't care if it's competitive, I just want her moving and being fit. As the second tallest girl in her class, and if teachers are as unimaginitve as they were in my day, she'll be Goal Shooter or Goal Keeper and kept within a small semicircle. My son is a little dynamo and finds football dull. I hate to think of sports being so restricted.

So, can anyone tell me that I have misunderstood where school sports is going?

OP posts:
charade · 13/08/2012 19:25

You can play a competitive sport, lose, and have fun at the same time. unless its netball, which is shit

Shagmundfreud · 13/08/2012 19:25

YABU

My children go to a school in a very deprived area. There are children there whose ONLY advantage is a skill in sports, and its the only thing which motivates them. I think it's a scandal that primary schools aren't providing the sort of environment where these children's skill can flourish.

motherinferior · 13/08/2012 19:26

You're unlikely to have fun if you are a total loser in competitive sport, though. Ask anyone else who stood there waiting miserably to be picked.

motherinferior · 13/08/2012 19:28

I fully agree that children, especially girls, should be encouraged to exercise. But that doesn't just mean dashing around hitting round objects. Many of us are really quite crap at dashing around hitting round objects. Possibly if we had been taught better, instead of just being shouted at by a track-suited sadist, this might be different, of course.

charade · 13/08/2012 19:29

I was the last to be picked. I am very uncoordinated unsporty and very, very small. I just wasn't miserable about it.

Sirzy · 13/08/2012 19:29

I don't agree motherinferior. I was rubbish at sport but still loved netball at school, i was crap at it but it was taught in such a way that that didn't matter. Teams where mixed, everyone was involved and people played together happily irrespective of ability.

catgirl2012 · 13/08/2012 19:30

YABU

If there isn't competitive sport when my DS reaches primary schoold I will be horrified.

Life is competitive.

Mind you I would rather he didn't play football and am hoping he won't. Or at least not as his main sport if he has too at all :(

Rugby please DS. Not football.

Prarieflower · 13/08/2012 19:30

Namechange making any subject miserable for the child taking part leads to failure.A class enjoying a maths lesson will 9 times out of 10 do better than one loathing it. The goal stays the same,you still have to attain the target you set out to teach but an enjoyable lesson will get better results as the children will be more fully engaged.You can put extremely difficult maths concepts over by kids participating in fun games.

Surely the whole point of PE lessons is physical exercise and fitness,making it enjoyable for all will be far more likely to produce that end result. But Dave doesn't care about sport for all just the elite few.

charade · 13/08/2012 19:30

But isn't the move towards sports about it being taught properly as a valued subject rather than the yelling approach of old?

Sirzy · 13/08/2012 19:31

*Mind you I would rather he didn't play football and am hoping he won't. Or at least not as his main sport if he has too at all sad

Rugby please DS. Not football. *

Thats my view! Thankfully at only 2 he is already asking to play rugby, hopefully he still feels the same in 18 months when he can start!

catgirl2012 · 13/08/2012 19:32

Keep pushing it Sirzy :) Sounds like you are doing are good job

Am praying my DS shows good taste like yours! :)

devondeva · 13/08/2012 19:35

"I think its great. Competitive sport is fantastic. It developed children in so much more that fitness." - yes it can, but so can art, music, dance etc. There is rarely an argument that these should all be more competitive, and that all children should have to do them.

Downandoutnumbered · 13/08/2012 19:39

YANBU. I don't mind the competition part, it's the team part. Some of us are just no good at games. I still want to cry when I think of my 7-year-old self, blind as a bat without my glasses (which I wasn't allowed to wear for PE), with 20 other kids all saying they didn't want me on their team because I was useless. I feel sick when I think of my poor DS having to go through the same thing.

giveitago · 13/08/2012 19:41

Vagaceratop - why is it crap - my ds ain't great at many things and he's 6 and at his current school he thinks he's fine at everything. He's not. He excells at some things and not in others just like others but he has no idea.

I'd welcome a return of competitive sports. I was the last picked at my my school always - then at 11 they saw me play tennis. I was good at that. Fine. I am the world's worst arist but excellent at maths and music. Who cares.

I want my kid to see that he won't win everything in life. And the sooner the better. To me it's not crap to see someone win. Good on them.

sadie3 · 13/08/2012 19:42

In my day sports days were about running, jumping and throwing as best as you could to win. My children?s sports days are about throwing a ball into a bucket, skipping on the spot for a minute and obstacle courses for what?. the fun of taking part, it?s pathetic. Please bring back proper sports and competition get children wanting to win and succeed again.

PrideOfChanur · 13/08/2012 19:44

I quite liked netball,but my experience of playing lacrosse - as the non sporty,no good at catching /throwing etc girl,is that it involves standing in a field while those more competent members of the class,often members of school teams,charge past you passing the ball to each other.
Not much teamwork available,no real chance to be competive if you can't actually do it!
I did try,but would have needed intensive coaching to get to anywhere near a decent standard.
I grew up thinking I was no good at physical activity,because I couldn't run,or catch.
But I love cycling,and swimming,and would have enjoyed any number of more individualistic sports.It would have been good if school sport could have given me the idea that activity is good,and there is something out there you can do and enjoy.
DD has dyspraxia,her running and ball skills are worse than mine.She is good at trampolining though.

The point of this post is that I'm not anti competitive activities or sport, but I don't think team sports are the be all and end all,many of the benefits quoted for them can be gained elsewhere,and they are not going to be the best form of physical activity for all children.

GlassofRose · 13/08/2012 19:45

It's not competitive sport that's the problem, it is children's attitudes. Playing in team games doesn't mean leaving someone out because they aren't as good. We need to teach children to encourage each and support each other.

Sport in secondary schools is a whole different kettle of fish... fall out with one of your friends and then get stuck playing doubles badminton with her (and the opposing team are on her 'side') ahh the memories Wine glug ha

devondeva · 13/08/2012 19:47

If you want a competitive sports day as in days of yore, they participation should be optional. I personally think it should be anyway. I just don't understand why getting children who have no aptitude to play sport in public is "character-building", whereas if we got them doing oral maths, or singing solo or in small groups where their voices could be heard it would be labelled humiliation.

Hulababy · 13/08/2012 19:47

Prarieflower - lots of children in KS1 are not able to deal with losing and also haven't learn to win graciously either. I would say there is at least 1 or 2 in pretty much every Y1 class I've worked in who have really struggled with this , and another handful who have some difficulties but are getting there.

Downandoutnumbered · 13/08/2012 19:48

Pride, I had to play lacrosse at secondary school - I was probably even worse than you because I couldn't see the ball! Fortunately I discovered the art of skiving relatively early on in my career at that school: most of my really horrible memories are from primary school.

Downandoutnumbered · 13/08/2012 19:50

GlassofRose , nice idea, but I don't think competitive team sports are the way to do it. I had a horrible time, but I can quite see that if you are good at something age 7 it's incredibly frustrating to lose your match because someone else is useless.

Downandoutnumbered · 13/08/2012 19:51

Agreed, devondeva.

FrillyMilly · 13/08/2012 19:52

What use is forced competitive sports to anyone? What percentage of the population go on to be professional olympians? I would rather an emphasis be placed on enjoying sports. I wasn't very good at sport so rather than risk teenage embarrassment by trying and failing I pretended I didn't care. I'd walk the 800m, get myself out at rounders and stay as far away from the ball as possible in hockey. I was never encouraged to do better. The second I left school I stopped all sport. 10 years on I've started to enjoy exercise again but it's taken a long time. I still have no desire to race or compete instead I swim and cycle because I enjoy it.

Competitive sport should be encouraged as an extra activity not part of the curriculum.

sadie3 · 13/08/2012 19:53

In my day you had to try out for the races so the fastest children were grouped together and then the next fastest and so on. Children that didn?t like sport could either participate or help out.

catgirl2012 · 13/08/2012 19:53

Is it really true that at sports days now there are no winners and losers and everyone gets a prize etc?

Surely its just an urban myth? Society cannot have lost the plot that badly?