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?

I think it is perfectly possible to have a medium competitive sports day that doesn't humiliate children. Our primary managed it.

Speaking as a parent of two poorly coordinated, academic strugglers, sports day was the least of their issues. It was the day in day out in class that took its toll. Other children calling out answers before they had finished processing the question, children telling them their handwriting or spelling was rubbish, never getting pictures displayed because they weren't any good.

Our school used to do 'practices' in the run up to sports day. What they were really doing was checking which children should compete against each other, and what games they would do. So we just didn't get the fast runners v the slow ones, or the massively unfit being asked to run twice round the field. They ran for houses not individual medals, but winners could still be proud of their achievements.

Meh. I was rubbish at sport when I was at primary school. On sports day, if you won a race, you got a badge with 1 star on it, 2nd with two stars, 3rd with 3 stars. I think I won 2 badges in the whole 6 years I was there, one of which had two stars for coming second the egg and spoon race where everyone else dropped their eggs and I still didn't win. I remember desperately wanting a badge with just one big star on it, but I never did.

But it didn't put me off sport. It didn't make me resent competition. It made me want to work harder and get better and, eventually I did. I went on to play netball for both my school and university, and in good standard adult leagues for nearly 20. Now, I cycle, I swim and (when my currently injury is fixed at least) I run too.

Competition can be good. Learning that being good at something can take hard work is better. My school, even a few decades ago, worked hard to make us all feel involved, and all part of our house teams. They made sure that as much as we wanted to win, we didn't feel bad when we didn't. It really isn't that hard, and understanding that not everyone wins all of the time is an important thing to learn and be comfortable with.

I believe sports day and the competitive approach to to sports in PE at schools that leaves the less able feeling humiliated are one of the key reasons why there are so many unfit and overweight people in the Uk that do almost no exercise whatsoever. I've lost count of the amount of people that say they do not participate in any kind of sport or exercise because they feel they're rubbish at it and can't do it.
We need to make Physical education in school from an early age less about winners and losers and more about keeping oneself healthy through regular exercise and a balanced diet.

Go and paste this onto that group:

"Our son is good at maths and academic subjects - he is that good that on a recent test he was only 2 marks down from being classed as in the top 1% of the country of 16 year olds. He gets loads of awards and certificates all the time.

Every year he does sports day, and every single year he loses every race he is in. But I am happy about about this, you know why? because instead of growing up to be an obnoxious brat he has learnt how to be a loser as well as a winner, how to encourage his friends who are good at sports to shine and appauld winners of races he could never win and learnt how to be happy for his friends successes.

Its not about "winners" and "losers" - sports day is a chance for those who are good at sports to shine (whether they can do maths or not), and more importantly than anything else its how your own child is prepared for the real world, where there will be times he/she will be a winner or loser - its helping your child to be able to cope mentally with their feelings. If you shield your child where do you stop? do you stop them playing board games as well? Seriously if you shield your child from everything then when is the right time to learn how to win and lose? when they are in their 30s?

Let your child live and learn"

Exactly AuFinch..

Too many precious parents these days..

Its about life experience and giving every child a chance to shine in the area they love..

EVERYONE is great at something

I was always crap at sports. It never really bothered me when I was small.Races and suchlike were just fun to me, and kids who burst into tears when they didn't win anything were considered spoilt.

However, I definitely think when children get older, compulsory sports days can be incredibly humiliating and something many non sporty kids absolutely dread.

Unfortunately in my DS' year the really clever, picked for everything, top of the class kids are also the fastest and sportiest. DS really struggles at school, he also can't run very fast. He still likes sports day though.

Can’t competitive sports and sports day be optional and on sporty kids be given the option of a fitness class,

I think competition is healthy for children (other than very young children). You can't avoid the fact that every human will have to compete throughout their lives - for exam results, internships, jobs, opportunities, promotions. Learning to both win and lose is an essential life skill, and children need to learn both the reward of hard work and the ability to graciously lose.

That said, I think that absolutely as much focus should be placed on recognising and giving awards for qualities like team-spirit, effort etc and not just for winning races. Sports day is a great opportunity to focus on being a team player and a decent, supportive person and that's so important. Plus, for the non-sporty kids they can throw in team events or personal challenges to make it as enjoyable as possible.

Dd1 is very academic (never gets certificates though - luckily she's not bothered). However she hates sports day. She's not terrible at sports but hates failure and the issue with sports day for her is it is very public failure. I hate watching knowing she'll end up in tears.

Although academic kids may well get praised, the losers of the maths test aren't stood up for all to see.

I don't think it should be stopped but I did consider letting dd stay home last year as she was stressed about it. In the end she went and there were tears.

I was incredibly sporty - every sports day especially when very young - the teaching staff organised some sort of issue to ensure my failure - otherwise I won nearly every race.. taught me a lot about life.. failure and success need to be understood at every age.

I don't understand why coming last is seen as a huge public failure. Are the kids allowed to point and laugh? Are parents pointing and laughing? If so, you've got much bigger problems with the school than whether the sports day is competitive or not.

My Dd had cancer as a toddler and meningitis in year 1. She was the tiniest kid in the class by a long way, very uncoordinated and slow, can't catch or throw for toffee, and not at all sporty. She joined in on the sports days at primary school and had fun. When all the other kids had crossed the finishing line, collected their stickers and sat back down, and dd was still half way down the track, everyone cheered her on and encouraged her to finish, which she did with a smile. When she was in ks1, the teachers would pick her up and carry her to the finish line or older kids would help her! No humiliation required. There were several children with disabilities or just not sporty, and they all got the same support and encouragement. The fast kids competed against each other and got to shine.

That said, I am a little anxious about how her first sports day at secondary school will go this year...

@IreneWinters I don't see it as a public failure but dd does. She's a perfectionist and very hard on herself. It's her character and she's the same with speaking out in class if she says something wrong. She perceives others are laughing due to the high standards she sets herself. All dc have their quirks and this is hers. We work on it and she's massively improved but she struggles with the public nature of sports day.

@m0therofdragons I can understand that. Some children put a huge amount of pressure on themselves. I was the same at secondary school. I saw getting 97% in a science test as a huge failure, but because I kept that thinking to myself, no-one could tell me to stop being a twerp!

Surely it's better for her to have that opportunity to realise that nobody is laughing at her, and to continue developing her resilience, than to just ban sports days though?

Also as a child I never remembered the kids who were last. I do remember the kids who didn't join in and made it all about them

This. Who is laughing at kids who come last? Never seen that. I was crap at sports and was always last in running races, but it didn’t matter because the focus was always on the winners.

If your kid can’t cope with losing because of their own high standards, I can’t see how it is helping them to keep them off school for things they don’t excel at. There will always be things in life we aren’t good at; it’s character building to be exposed to them.

Not rtft but I imagine this will be a small group of zealots. There are many of these in every school, over homework, trips, class assemblies, booster groups, the pta, and so on. They look bigger and noisier than they actually are when online.

I certainly got laughed at for coming last. To be fair, I was last in every race I ever ran, so it was a running joke throughout primary school. People used to sing the "chariots of fire" music and do slow motion running at me to take the piss.

I remember the relief one year when I was sick on sports day and missed it. I also remember the feeling when I realised that it was the last time I'd ever have to endure it.

It put me off sports for a long time.

BUT - in most other areas of school, I came near the top, so actually coming last was not a bad thing to learn really. Also, these days I actually have a semi-decent marathon PB, so fuck them :-)

School PE lessons and sports day totally put me off doing any exercise for a long time. I wish they would teach how it keeps you healthy and that what matters is that you do it and find something you enjoy. That it still improves your health and fitness whether you are fast/score the winning goal or not.
If you weren't good enough to be on a team you were invisible to our horrible PE teachers. You were taught nothing. I took up running later in life and really enjoyed it, but at school it was there's the track, run. No technique nothing. I have actually run a few 10k's it's my favourite distance no thanks to school.

At my DC's school the child are in 4 teams named after a colour. They a top of the relevant colour and so do the parents if they want. Each child is then in lots of mini team activities within their classes. There is a gold sticker each for all the winning team. Others get well done stickers. I think this works well as there is competitive element still but it is a team level so not really focussing on the performances of individuals.

@IreneWinters no I don't think it should be banned but it's so busy for teachers I'm not sure dc get help re building their resilience.

I do also think that school puts many people off sports as adults. I'll never be able to compete competitively so surely it's actually better to use sport in school to encourage fun doing sport rather than focusing on winning and losing. So many non sporty kids are now non sporty adults lacking in confidence to try anything in case they're rubbish at it (hence obesity issues in this country). Bloody gym knickers with my name embroidered along my inner groin almost put me off for life!