Sports day

[upsideup]

Theres a thing on the schools facebook parent group about trying to ban sports day unless there are no winners or losers because 'its not fair on the children who arent good a sports'. And these are all the parents of children who are top of the class day in day out at school and who recieve awards constantly for their maths or spelling ability complaining that for just a few hours once a year their kid doesnt win everything and children like my DS get a chance to be good at something and have their talents recongnised.

He's 8, he sits there through awards assemberly every other friday and happily doesnt ever recieve any certificates for being best in class at anything or even making the best progress because he's not and he's making really slow progress. He deals with it, realises hes good at other things and says well done to his friends that do win. Sports day is his thing, hes incredibly sporty and normally wins a quite a few events because he is best at them, its not unfair that he works really hard to be good a these things.

I am so angry for him. AIBU?

There is a fine line with it I think overly competitive isn’t nice but no need for the “no winners” approach either. There is plenty of sensible middle ground

Yes, you're unreasonable and at a young age it's a sure-fire was for children to be put off sports and competing.

The school are unreasonable giving certificates out for ability.

"There's a thing on the schools facebook parent group about trying to ban sports day unless there are no winners or losers "

That sounds like a few parents moaning, rather than something the school are actually seriously considering doing. In which case YABU for being "so angry" for your DS. Save your anger for when the school actually ban Sports Day, ie probably never!

Parents social media groups moan about all sorts of nonsense, often from a completely uninformed basis. Don't get angry about it unless it's an actual thing coming from the school.

Somehow a paragraph was deleted.

We have competition at our sports day(s) but there are mostly team games so that winning or not is a shared experience. Different stations / events are manned and the children rotate. We have winning groups or individuals and they get ribbons for 1st, 2nd and 3rd but of course there are as many winners as there are stations.

Our school has fostered a spectacular team spirit as well as confident children who value their growth mindsets.

To be honest lets forget sports day for a minute. Can we focus on how crap the school seems are you seriously saying the 4 years he has attended he has won 0 certificates. Not even a star of the week award or an award for being helpful, kind, caring a good friend? If true, I find that bloody shocking to be honest.

This topic comes up annually, and discussion around it tends to be based on the unrealistic assumption that kids can easily be separated into 'academic' and 'sporty' categories. They can't. Some are neither. Some are both.

So, I don't buy the 'it's my child's turn for a medal' argument.

But I do think competition is a healthy and potentially enjoyable aspect of sport, and a mix of individual prizes and group awards is perfectly appropriate for a primary school sports day - perhaps sticking to the latter for Reception and KS1.

Yes, you're unreasonable and at a young age it's a sure-fire was for children to be put off sports and competing.

Really? I would have thought saying it doesnt matter how good you are at something or how hard you try we are just going to ignore it and pretend you all did equally well would discourage sports and competing because its a load of rubbish. Competition and rewards motivate children and make them want to try and work harder for next time.

I am hopeless at running and things we did on sports' day. My aim was not to come last in every race. Occasionally I managed it.
I hated far worse team sports where I felt I let down my team too.

I believe that it is a time when different children can shine and winners are part of that despite never winning (except once where they lost an egg for one race and gave me a bean bag) myself.

If your child is sporty, then sign him up for sports clubs, etc. He can shine there.

I don't think the parents on the FB page are being fair, as you describe them, but I'd keep well out. The FB page isn't the school and doesn't set the policies. If the SCHOOL ask for your views, then give them.

Just copied this from something I posted on a similar thread a year ago. I still stand by what I said then. Sports Day is about ending the year with a bit of fun and enjoying being part of the whole school community. It is a tradition that goes back to the dark ages when I was at school.

(I cut of the first words though, it should read, 'I know.....)

this is mainly about primary sports day, but I've just come home from my secondary sports day and what a day! I have never been so proud to be part of a school community! All of KS3 were involved, around 600 kids.

They spent the first hour and half of the day, making banners in their tutor groups and then, after break, all filed down onto the field, banners held high. There was suitable sporty music playing as they all came together like the opening ceremony of the Olympics! It was a truly wonderful sight! I got a bit emotional watching everyone get together laughing with anticipation and excitement.

It was fantastically organised and everyone was involved. Students either participated in the sport or they cheered on their mates. There was singing and dancing and banter between tutor groups, year groups and teachers. It really was a wonderful day.

I think sometimes people forget that it's supposed to be fun and if you're that upset by the fact that little Jonny is rubbish and will get upset, then perhaps it's you that needs the reality check, not your kid! It's your job to encourage them to join in, not give them negative vibes that sports day is shit and you will fail.

Not one person failed at my school today. Everybody joined in and remembered what a fabulous thing it is to be part of a whole school community.

I don't have a problem with competitive sports day, it's more fun when it's competitive. Not everyone is good at sports, not everyone will win. But that's life. Children need to learn to win and lose gracefully.

The non-sporty types must not be left humiliated. That sometimes happens in class, children are like that, but in front of the whole school and possibly their friends' parents? No. Nobody does that to the less academic kids, and what is the difference? If that means less chance for Fast and High to show what they can do, that is JTB.

I love Sports Day, and I never won. Life is not about being fair, it's often bloody unfair and sports day helps kids accept that with the right help from their parents.

I say long live Sports Day with winners, losers and kids who never give up even though they're losing.

As long as they are not made to take part!

I went to a non competitive school...no marks on tests no sports where we kept a score or raced. Nothing where we could judge our performance against our peers. So as kids we used to have sports played on the side while the teachers weren't looking...it was gladiatorial.
It would have been far better to recognise that different people are good at different things and celebrate all achievements rather than trying to achieve equality in all things and celebrate nothing.

I much prefer the competitive approach. As previously mentioned, being competitive is a good life skill. You can still have fun even if you didn't win and learn to congratulate everyone for trying their best!

Sports day is humiliating for a child who can't run fast.

So your child might not be the best of maths, but are they forced to get sums wrong in front of an audience of cheering parents and friends?

No.

PE lessons should be encouraging healthy attitudes to sports and exercise for life.

Personally, PE lessons put me off sport totally for at least 10 years.

Competitive sport should be confined to extra curricular a.

To be honest lets forget sports day for a minute. Can we focus on how crap the school seems are you seriously saying the 4 years he has attended he has won 0 certificates. Not even a star of the week award or an award for being helpful, kind, caring a good friend? If true, I find that bloody shocking to be honest

This was my main thought too. If accurate, it's disgusting that a school would operate this way (only rewarding the kids who topped the class or made the most progress that week. That means the same kids were guaranteed a certificate on a regular basis).

I've sat through more than my fair share of weekly assemblies and some of the reasons for getting a certificate were a bit eyebrow raising (my DC received one once for "having a great insect glossary" on his project), but at least everyone received a fair share of certificates by year's end. If everything I did in class/school was deemed unnoteworthy for years on end I'd just give up and not bother.

As both a child and a parent I found sports day the most boring day of the year, but for some children it's the only time they have a chance to "earn" a reward, so for that reason it should still go ahead.

So your child might not be the best of maths, but are they forced to get sums wrong in front of an audience of cheering parents and friends?

This reminds me of an incident at my children's primary school years ago. We had a new principal, who was actually very good in most other aspects, but made a monumental cockup at the end of year awards day.

He thought it was a great idea to get every class group to separately stand up on the floor in front of the stage in front of the assembled students, staff and families. Then each member of the class who was to receive an award would be called up onto the actual stage. This wasn't too bad when it averaged out at half or less of the class receiving an award. Not terribly ideal to have the non-reward recipients still standing in front of everyone, but at least there was a fair number (per class) standing in solidarity.

It was, however, downright humiliating, embarrassing and mortifying for the one class that only had two students left standing on their own. I knew one of the kids and he was/is one of the nicest, kindest, and also quite vulnerable people I'd met in the school. I felt like crying, and just wanted to rush up to the front and grab these two boys and give them a hug. The ironic thing was, they were supposed to receive an award that wasn't covered by the ones being given out (special sports one I think). Their poor classroom teacher was in tears as she hadn't been told of this last minute change.

Needless to say, there was some serious flack over this and that method of giving out awards was never used again.

Damn Arnold of Rugby. His vision of how to run a school for the sons of the English upper middle classes lingers on and infects schools for children of every age, gender and condition. Dig him up: bury him under the sports field; and build a STEM block on top of it.

My father went to school in Central Europe between the wars. Games were after school for those who wanted them, and most children did, but those who didn't weren't leaned on.

I have no problem with Sports Day. We would be divided into teams and would cheer on the fastest, strongest etc. members of those teams. If we won, we all won. No one was forced to run.

This is actually part of the whole problem with raising children these days, “ooohh they mustn’t lose at anything or ever be disappointed” I prefer the term “suck it up buttercup” it really isn’t going to emotionally scar your child if they don’t win a running race and yes it does give the slightly less good two shoes or academics to shine a bit. Our school does the whole house team games and then a few running races at the end, best of both worlds I feel.

It probably won't leave an indelible emotional scar if a child is forced to suffer embarrassment in front of the whole school and many of the parents singing or at a spelling bee Scottsy100 but we don't do it. You have fallen for the fallacy that sport is different. It isn't.