Primary school sports day

[Babbit]

Ok, I accept I might be U but I was cross nevertheless. Sports day and years 3-6 divided into their class groups and there is a circuit of activities; some running races, some throwing events and some jumping. The classes are divided into sub-teams of 6 with the emphasis being on the team winning rather than the individuals. So far so good.

At the conclusion of the whole event the kids, parents and teachers congregate around the track which has been marked out in the grass and there follows a teachers race, a parents sack race. All good fun.

Then some of the boys are lined up and there are 2 further races of year 4 and 4 boys (a shorter distance), then years 5 and 6 boys (a longer distance). Then we all start to leave. I asked the (male) sports coach when the girls are running and he tells me that it was just the winners from all classes in the running. I also point this out to the deputy head who is standing nearby who shrugs and says, we'll that's life. Erm, it may be but aren't we trying to do something about that, not least encouraging girls in sport! I was really cross and have been (silently) fuming since. So, AIBU?.

Well, it was just the winners running, it's not like there were no girls allowed. There are loads of girls in DS's class who would beat the boys in a running race. Maybe the fact that no girls won may encourage them to try a bit harder hey.

Pick your battles, this seems like a pointless one to me.

Yeah, you're probably right Betty. It just seemed wrong at the time. I suppose I was just (a) a bit confused by the message of the event - is it a competition, a team game etc and, (b) the running was sort of presented as the headline event and was limited to boys only because of the way they had selected the winners (it was all a bit chaotic and haphazard in the way these things are). Will move on.

I am kind of on the fence. It's possible they asked the kids do you want an extra race? and only boys said yes.

y6 DD is a very keen runner, by the way, and would have led a one-girl campaign to be allowed to race, but there's no shortage of keen girl runners at her school, anyway.

I think YANBU: if it was a kind of run-off for the best performers (which sits a bit oddly anyhow with the rest of the sports days being inclusive), it wouldn't be difficult to race top 2 boys and top 2 girls.

And if they find that the bigger boys are generally becoming stronger/faster than girls, then they need to be considering separate sex races throughout.

That's what I thought they were about to do Scaevola - have another race for the top girls. I just felt the message was wrong. May be the girls should have tried harder to win, but I wonder if that would be pointless even in year 3 (so aged 8/9). When do gender differences in sport begin in terms of speed etc?

My mum (a teacher) once argued with the new PE coordinator that boys and girls should run in separate flat running races at Sports Day.

My mum, as a teacher with many years experience under her belt, said that making them run together would end up with only boy winners apart from truly exceptional girl runners.

New person said that was nonsense, they're the same etc. Mum said fair enough, we'll see.

On Sports Day every first place went to a boy and only one girl got second place.

They went back to splitting them for the running races the following year.

My favourite moment during any of my dc's sports days was the boys' race where one of dd's friends had asked if she could run the boys' race as all her friends were boys and she wanted to run with her friends.
They let her and she came first.

My experience in doing some sports coaching is that the boys are often more competitive, so do better when it really matters (ie the real race). It may be that when they had the practices that there was an even smattering of boys and girls coming at the top.

I should say, in the interests of full disclosure, that my DD was the first girl in her class and came 2nd in her class to a boy. She thought she was going to go and race again and had asked me to stop chatting and to make sure I was watching. She was quite accepting of the situation when it became clear she would not be running (which I have to say is really unusual - she is very physically active and highly competitive!). I'd like to think I would have noticed this had all happened in any event.

I think I will raise it again. If they look at it and can justify the decision then I will have to accept their judgement on such matters. Usually they are very good, which is why I was surprised.

I'm not sure if there is a definitive cut-off for when athletics divides by sex. U11s seem to have both mixed and single sex competitions.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has a definitive answer on this.

i would think that if mixed races much beyond 7-8 the boys would win nearly everything

2 views

If you want to be all inclusive then the winners of each is fair enough, if they happen to be all boys then so be it.

However if you want the sports day to be split along gender lines then fine. I don't think you can have both.

Well my older dd wiped up the floor with the boys in year 7 as she ran for the county but older than this I think it's usual for them to run separate races.

Op get your point but at least there was bloody races with proper winners.

Bloody hate this crap of well its the team that wins. Yes in a team game like netball or footi but not at sports day.

You need a winner and medals. If not then forget maths tests, spelling tests and form prizes as its unfair.

Some kids just shine in sports day but apparently that's not acceptable. It's ok to be top in other ways though.

Gggrrrr.

I think You are probably being unreasonable to object to a race that featured just the winners, however it sounds like the organisers should have done a better job of explaining their reasoning. They could have put up a board with a list of the winners as they finished their races, to let people know who would be taking part

PS I hate sports day with a vengeance!

Observations from club athletics - under-11 boys and girls compete separately, and the strongest girls are often better than the boys at running and jumping. The boys seem to massively out-throw the girls though, using foam javelins and 'howlers' (so not heavy implements).

My DD and her best friend at primary school could out-run and jump any of the boys. One of them is now a county athlete on very little effort, the other is a serious national-level competitor, while four of the boys were signed up to big football or county cricket clubs by year 6.

The fastest boys should be able to beat the fastest girls, but in clubs it's not always easy to recruit the strongest lads (football again). By the under-13s, the difference is greater, inevitably. At 15, my daughter, who high jumps, would be expected to jump about a foot less than her male counterpart.

Which is a roundabout way of not giving a very definitive answer. The boys and girls were separated on sports day at our primary school, certainly by year 4 (can't recall exactly). If they'd been in together, I wonder if DD and her mate would have found the sporty boys suddenly trying a lot harder (they only raced directly against each other in PE lessons).

I don't understand why boys were running against girls in the first place

Re the maths tests and spelling tests. To my understanding the results from the vast majority of academic tests are kept private (and rightly so!), it would be an unusual school which puts up a list of scores and the rank beside them. I've never heard of a school which awards medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd in academic tests. Obviously the children may talk amongst themselves but to my knowledge the main emphasis is to encourage each child to achieve their best and not to compare them to their peers.

YANBU
Bandi's mum is right, we did have a girl who could beat the boys she was county cross country champion.

Even then it was very, very tight over short distances.

This is one of those things where schools can't win. I have heard parents complaining because girls and boys do separate running races and that is supposedly sending the message that it's a foregone conclusion that the boys will be better.

The school could have done their sports day in one of a hundred different ways and they would still be unable to change the fact that differences exits between girls and boys. We need to stop pretending that there's something wrong with that.

I don't think the school was in a "can't win" here.

They had already timed the pupils in the various races. All they needed to do for the finals is choose fastest two girls and fastest two boys (even if that's not the same as fastest four). As the difference in sprint times even amonsgst elite U11s in less than a second, it'll be a good race.

BTW: OP - were the earlier groups of 6 for races/activities divided by sex?

Our old school has just moved away from its old format, with each year having two sprints and two novelty races and most of the school sitting down waiting to die watching at any one time, to more of a proper athletics event where there are lots of events going on at once, all children do a run (choice of sprint, longer race or mini hurdles, heats carefully seeded), jump and throw. There are also team relays, in which it's not obvious which are the fastest runners. There are more opportunities to win, and the least sporty children can have a go without feeling that everyone's watching. From what I hear, it's been a success with sporty and non-sporty children alike.

Boys and girls still separate.

my DD never gets beaten, she is an exceptional runner, so i expect the boys would feel very hard done by if they had to race her,

I have had parents tell me she shouldn't be allowed to take part,

I agree as long as they are prepared to withdraw their offspring from any literacy tests as she is dyslexic just to give her the same chance.

they should race in age groups, and gender groups, as it would be very hard to choose the cut off point and make it fair.

Quoteunquote, my dd is the same. I am glad that she can shine on sports day because she finds her school work quite a challenge a lot of the time.
I also have overhead other parents making comments about her. Last year I overheard one mum telling her dd to pretend that my dd was not there, presumably so as not to demoralise her as my dd reaches the end before the others have barely reached half way!

I agree, thebody, I was pleased there was a competitive element. Justforlaughs, I agree with you that because the final race was just for the winners, I should be less incensed. Brandi, yes your mum's experience was totally borne out this morning at Dds sports day.

Scaevola, the earlier teams were divided but how I'm not clear. They were mixed teams and then each kid was given a number, so the 1s would always compete against each other, the 2s likewise, etc. the 4s, of which my daughter happened to be one of, were all girls. The others were all mixed. There was some design as the children in DDs class with SEN were all number 5. I should add, they hadn't timed anyone. There were heats of children using the numbers and the winner of each heat then competed and the finalist of that race went into the final race at the end of sports day.

Cloudsandtrees, I agree to the extent that parents will always have an opinion, many polarised, and the school can't always win. However, if they'd added an additional race of the girl winners from each class, it wouldn't have hurt. They could have made that judgement at the conclusion and if the winners overall were both sexes then an addional race may have been unnecessary.

To be honest, I'm a bit on the fence myself, even though my initial reaction was to be v cross.