Awful School sports day

[Seniorschoolmum]

I’ve just endured my ds’s sports day. My ds loathes sport. He has been stressing about it for weeks. He is the youngest, slowest & smallest in his year. He had to take part in every race and came last in all except one.
This was in front of 300 people.
He was understandably humiliated and very upset, and it showed. The school head walked across to him and told him to stop making a fuss, in front of everyone.
Six weeks ago, his year did SATS. In a class room, not in front of an audience of 300. Those children who weren’t very good were provided with counselling g, two terms of mindfulness sessions and every support.
I wholly agree with that support.

But the head’s behaviour this afternoon was nasty, spiteful, ignorant and unhelpful. I am so angry I can barely speak. I feel like pulling ds out of school for the last 3 weeks of term and wrecking her attendance figures on purpose.

I will calm down in a bit but honestly....

I went to my sports day in my first year of primary school and never went to another.

I'm fine. He will be too.

Keep him home next time. Sports day is a load of shite anyway.

I’d like to know exactly what he was doing that made the headteacher , presumably on a very busy day with 300 parents present , come across to tell him off . Aside from that I really cannot understand why , if you know this happens every year and you know how far in advance he starts stressing about it , that you didn’t say to him weeks ago that he could take a sick day .

I feel for your ds op. My eldest is always the last in any race and gets that feeling of failure reinforced not just at pe lessons 2 times a week, daily mile run at school and also very publicly once a year at sport day. There are no rewards for taking part, no prizes or encouragement for the slowest kids.

Wow, there are some proper arseholes on this thread.

Visibly upset doesn't have to mean 'making a fuss' or 'having a tantrum'. I'll bet the very last thing the OP's son wanted was for people to notice his tears, the poor lad.

One of my favourite things about being an adult is not being made to do stuff that humiliates me and that I detest. I think knowing what you will put up with and what you won't is also a valuable lesson to learn.

Hope you and your son have a great day off next year together.

Our school sports day is all team events of mixed gender and age groups in "houses". It means everyone in the team is cheering on and no one is individually a winner of loser. It is very inclusive. The only individual race is sprints which are finals with the pre quals being done during pe lessons. They also have a longer run for junior children in a different day. The Y6 children marshall the other years and also run in with the lady children and the ones at the end probably get a bigger cheer than the ones that win. The year a boy did it with his walking frame surrounded by his class mates I think there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd. I think our school cater really well for the sporty and not so sporty on these days.

For the people saying they have to learn to lose graciously at things, if he's anything like my daughter, she was embarrassed at coming last because all the attention was on her while she finished, not because she was upset at being last. It has really affected her too, OP. She keeps saying she felt humiliated. She wouldn't even have minded being second last because she wouldn't have been on her own finishing with everyone watching her.

Urgh. Last children not lady. Apologies for my many typos!

As one who was always last at anything that involved running, and always the last person to be picked for any "team" in games lessons, I have a lot in common with your son. You need to help him by not being so precious. I'm sure he's good at other things. He does himself no favours by kicking off about how much he hates it and being last in everything in full view of everything else. As his mother you need to encourage his resilience so that this doesn't matter too much to him (after all it's "only" sport) and because he understands it's no big deal, he doesn't show himself up in front of everyone again. He needs to learn to focus on what he's good at and let the other stuff go.

Ignore the help the less able ones get for the SATS, in my opinion you can't compare the two. I always found it so sad when I was interviewing adults who had somehow been badly let down by our education system and could barely read or write. Doomed to a difficult and limited life in a way that someone who is crap at games/sport is not.

I think most children that do competitive sport have felt humiliated. I know my own dcs have had really embarrassing moments falling off horses in front of everyone and feeling like idiots. But it's horse culture that you walk out with a smile and a pat for the horse. Don't cry until you get back to the trailer and even then you have to look after your horse first before you can indulge yourself with a cry. Seems to work well as far as building resilience goes. Doesn't have to be horses, I'm sure it happens in all competitive sport, the footballer who misses the penalty, the netballer who muffs the shot, the athlete who comes last. They all pick themselves up and carry on. Don't see why a race at sports day is any different.

Some kids have high self esteem, some middling, some low. It's not a matter of pulling themselves together.

Telling him not to feel the way he feels is invalidating and will lead him to feel shame about feeling the shame.

Don't ever invalidate another person's feelings if you want them to thrive.

jumbojem our school has a similar approach- everyone in houses of mixed years, team captains are yr 6 and they have things like egg on spoon, hurdles, basket ball shoots, obstacle courses. It's so inclusive and all the kids love it. There's also 3 levels so you choose which to go for - the more challenging level you do, the more points you get for your team. They don't get to know the points until they announce overall winning team at the end of the day.

As someone who hated sports I wish my school would had done this.

People keep suggesting team events as somehow better. As some who is totally uncoordinated and always last as any sport, I hated team events at school most. When I came last at a race it was just myself who was last. In team events it meant the team lost because of me. Much much worse.

@shesgrownhorns rubbish. Not every feeling is valid.

to you and your son.

School sports can be horribly demotivating and ultimately bad for your health, because it puts you off sports for fun.

I'd say just let him skip it next time. School sports don't matter anyway.

I was always shit at sports day

Shortest in the class, athletics, high jump, short distance running, was really not my thing and sports day was a humiliating drag
but I had my own individual sport I was good at and competed at national level as a child and teen, so didnt really give a shit about being a failure at athletics since all the little ribbons the school would hand out were worth nothing to a regional or national medal.
Im afraid would wander around on sports day paying very little attention to the whole thing. Irritating to my teachers Im sure but it helped my self esteem more than being the permanent loser of hurdling and long jump competitions with girls over a foot taller than me. And I would normally win the cross country run since I trained a lot and had stamina.

Now Ive got kids who given my genetics are likely to not be the tallest. Ive made sure to let them try out lots of things and they both seem to have separate individual sports they are really enjoying and building skills in, which I hope it will make up for the inevitable fact that they are likely to be shorter than average and maybe not the best at the sort of competitions you have on sports day. And it gives them a good opportunity for them to learn about both winning and losing, and how to behave in both situations.

You say he likes cycling and swimming - how about getting him to try out some skills based individual sports - tennis, badminton, martial arts and see if you can find him somewhere he can shine.

bourbonbiccy do they get a choice at your school? At ours, all races are compulsory, everyone does every race. There’s no option of only doing one race.

@jennymanara I think you're confusing feelings with logic.

I think most children that do competitive sport have felt humiliated. I know my own dcs have had really embarrassing moments falling off horses in front of everyone and feeling like idiots.

Ah, this is so mumsnet

Physical education is one thing. Absolutely it should be compulsory. But competitive sports needn't be. It should be more focus on fitness and form and the academic aspects as well.
Plus forced spectating is so Dull. I spent more time reading and mentally filtering out noise than ever paying attention to the action whatever it was. Waste of an afternoon.

My DCs school has a good variety of races and each class is broken down into groups of about 7-8 which spreads the competition and makes it less likely that A will inevitably win every race and B will inevitably lose. My dyspraxic child got placed twice with this system which wouldn't happen in bigger groups and a focus on pure athletics as was my experience of sports day...

I was SHIT at PE, so it was important to me to get my DCs active in different ways right from the start. We got into junior parkrun. DS is the smaller end of his class, but knowing he's an experienced distance runner of 2k and 5k and can run them in respectable times makes such a difference to his self esteem. Sport isn't defined by PE and athletics/ team sports. He has a pathway to physical activity for life. His dyslexia/ dyspraxia means he can't write his name accurately and he finds writing painful and slow and a huge effort to write something that is barely legible due to his letter formation and very phonetic spelling. Some days, getting out of the house for school uses up his resilience. Some children struggling with sports struggle elsewhere too. He is very self aware of his struggles but most of the time they are reasonably private, and he gets a long way on his verbal ability and general knowledge.

My experience of PE and sports days was of constant ritual humiliation. The last to be chosen for the team (always, always dorky friend 1, then dorky friend 2 then the crumpling realisation that it's Sudowoodo left over and your turn to put up with her). The flat ball. The substitute. Never given certain desirable positions. Taunted "lapped you, lapped you twice" Bollocked by the teacher who couldn't believe that I genuinely could not throw, catch or run so therefore wasn't trying.

Most of the time I took it with reasonable humour week in, week out. My mood did blow on a couple of occasions including sports day y2. I was the new girl, just moved 100+ miles, severed off from all my friends. Been in the school a couple of weeks at most and no support to make any friends, just plonked in the spare seat. I was put in the skipping race and presented with a skipping rope. I could not skip. The whistle blows. I tried. I tried again. I tried yet again. By this point all the other girls were finishing and I'm on my own flailing around with this stupid fucking skipping rope at the start. So I throw down the stupid fucking skipping rope and stomp off to the finishing line, the only child in front of 300 people. What happens at the finishing line? Any sympathy for the new girl who's just publicly demonstrated that she can't do something that's taken for granted? No. Oh no. They sent me off on my own to collect the fucking skipping rope to walk back up the fucking race track and back. Did it teach me anything constructive? Not at all. Most of my losses have faded into obscurity, but that one cut deep because of the lonliness and lack of support and the total failiure to acknowledge that I had tried my best in a situation that I could only fail in. (Incidentally about 10 years later I got chance to read my school record and that teacher who conceeded that she had only taught me for ONE day at the time of writing, went on to give a pretty damning character assasination, only one of 3 teachers that I had totally failed to get on with, the other being a particularly clichéd PE teacher and the other being a knob who was hated by staff and students alike )

I'm a good sport in adulthood. I can take losing in the mums' race after falling and rolling and pick myself up laughing and plough on, because I put myself there. I'm happy to be a very average for my category runner in a race because I'm in good company. I can keep the tail walker company at parkrun because everyone is just pleased to participate.

I don't have a problem with losing. I do have a problem with people being set up to fail, being left out on their own and being unsupported. I'm aghast that some children still get treated like crap in the name of sport as standards have generally improved a lot in the last 20-30 years.

It was mobile phone technology that taught me how to run. Much more effective than the bloody PE teachers.

PS I did learn to skip at 10... not so useful s skill in adulthood unless I'm prepared with the appropriate protective undergarments.

Yeah, its probably quite posh even for mumsnet, sorry but horses are what we do. Life would be dull if we were all the same, even down to enjoying sports day

My 11 year old managed to be a helper on the water stand rather than do the sports. She still ended up overwhelmed and crying because it was too hot and too noisy.
Her headteacher told her she had done a fantastic and important job keeping everyone hydrated
though. Personally I hated sports day as a child because I am simply just not interested in sport and it seems my daughter has inherited this!
OP I hope your boy will feel better tomorrow after he has had a good sleep. My daughter fell asleep about half 4 because the heat wore her out. She is now wide awake and happy and the day is forgotten.
(I am hoping for a second burst of tiredness soon zzzzz)

@shesgrownhorns The point is that you may feel a certain way, but how you react to that feeling is not necessarily valid.

If I had heard any one speaking to my child in a way I didn't like (unkind spiteful) I would say so... I don't care who they are

What a poorly organised sportsday that was, but I don't think sportsday in all schools should be cancelled, because some DC are not good at it.

Sportsday shouldn't leave any child feeling humiliated and if it's having that effect...they ought to rethink how it's done.

I'll be honest in saying, at my DCs school (they're mid to late teens now) none of the parents, myself I included were particularly interested in watching events of kids in other years and just focused on races their own kids were in.

I'd say the perception that the all the parents of the entire school watching is not the case.

I was really only interested in watching my kids and their
friends racing.

Most of us would leave after our DC had competed, unless to see them getting a medal.

I do agree on the choosing ppl for teams in PE and how horrible that is for children.

I felt so strongly about it happening at DDs school, that I wrote to the HeadT and cited (from my online research) the effect this had on children and why it shouldn't be going on. I was amazed at how many ppl, now adults experienced anxiety and found the team selection in PE traumatic when I looked into it.

I raised a few more points, which I won't mention here, as it could be outing... but they stopped doing it immediately.