Sports day just one race

[unlikelyusername]

Hiya all, I've name changed for this as it will totally out me. DD1's sports day was arranged for Wednesday of this week then cancelled due to bad weather. Perfectly understandable although it now seems that when arranging the sports days there was no thought that this could happen so no alternative was arranged.

Got a text from school at 5pm yesterday to say that they would do sports day for nursery, reception, y1 and y2 this morning. Not a lot of notice for working parents.

Turned up this morning to sit through nursery doing all their races. Brilliant and well done. Then reception class did 1 race and all sat down again while y1 and y2 started their races. All us reception parents looked at each other and thought, oh they must all be taking turns. Then the reception children are led back inside as that's their sports day finished!

Asked a teacher if that was it and told yes, it was the nursery sports day today and we just tagged the others on. You should be grateful you got to see your child race.

WIBU to complain to the school about not organising the day properly, i.e. leaving enough time for alternative dates if on the one day they set aside it is raining?

I know how much the kids have been looking forward to it and feel they've been let down by poor planning.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Sorry YABU.

If sports day is cancelled, it's cancelled, it happens so late in the year there's very rarely any time to reschedule it. The teacher is right, you were lucky you got to see one race.

If it's cancelled here because of rain, that's it, it doesn't happen.

Jesus Christ there are more things to worry about

Thank you. I'm just used to it being organised about 3 or 4 weeks before the holidays so there are always alternative dates. That's why I wanted to check what the norm was in other schools.

YANBU most a schools set alternative dates, that's just bad planning by the school. My reception child spent a whole morning do a carousel type event, lots of different activities which parents could watch, and then did 3 different races in the afternoon with the rest of the school. Poor show for your school!

Yes well LashesandLipstick some of the crap you worry about doesn't interest me so that's why I don't bother commenting. Sheesh

Unlikely I was just pointing out that complaining about only seeing one race at sports day is really trivial. Does it even matter?!

I think they should have mentioned in the message that was sent that it was to be a curtailed event and each class would only be doing one race ,that way you can make an informed decision about whether it's worth the time an aggravation to attend .

Bloody hell, I had to sit through the same races done by each class from reception to yr 6, in heats of 6 at a time, so five races per year. One after the other, for hours. I can only dream of being released from this torture after just one race. Count your lucky stars!

I actually think YANBU.
When we received a letter about sports day from DDs school, it told us the date of sports day, plus an alternative date in case of too wet/hot weather. Therefore we had plenty of notice and there was a contingency plan for the children.

Well if they gave you virtually no notice and you are a working parent who has managed somehow to take time off work, with virtually no notice, only to see one race when you weren't told it was only going to be one race - then YANBU.

The school could have explained that the other classes were getting a very truncated version of sports day and maybe you wouldn't have thought it worth your while taking a whole morning off work (if that's what you did).

Not sure a complaint is in order though. Can't see the school taking it particularly seriously - although in your shoes I might want to explain to whoever that better communication in the future would mean you didn't waste a morning's annual leave watching a single race.

Ah, I see what you mean now LashesandlLipstick. It obviously matters to me and other parents who have taken time off work, some unpaid.

Yes Floralnomad, that's what I thought. Think it's more that we all made arrangements to attend a sports day when we only needed to be there for 5 minutes.

Yes, Think you're right. I shouldn't complain as there was a lot of work went in to it but just put across about the poor communication. Thank you all for your help.

Unlikely but schools have so many things to deal with that a complaint about it would really be unfair. I get that it's annoying but I just think you got to see her race, she had a nice time (I think?) and all was well.

One race sounds like the perfect sports day for me
But I can see why you're pissed off if you've taken time off work.

MissPenelopeLumawoo2 that made me laugh. You're right I should be glad it was to the right extreme

Haha you can tell this is the first sports day can't you. I'm sure by yr6 I'll be looking back with fond memories at the time I only had to sit through one race. Thanks everyone for helping me get things into perspective.

One race does seem a bit daft but having just sat through a three hour 'Olympics' it sounds like heaven!
At least you'll know the score for next time one is cancelled.

That would annoy me too, if I had had to arrange time off. The school need a back up date IMO.

But way back when in DS's Dirst School days there were always three dates for Sports Day in case of postponement. One year it rained on all three. Hurrah.

*First

We have been at school since 9am. Sports dayornig and afternoon with everyone having lunch on the field. Dd is in year 6. Quite honestly I am jealous of you only have to watch one race

It would annoy me too, even though I had to sit through a long sports day and that annoyed me.

Maybe I'm just annoyed a lot!

I wouldn't complain about the short race. I would complain about the poor communication and planning.

We had sports day one year.

The children had literally just walked out and done an introductory parade thing.

Then it started raining. Sports day abandoned.

Taking time off work for sports day is always fraught with risks.