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’m with the head on this one. Children need to learn graciously, otherwise they grow into very unpleasant adults.

I'm not sure how a child is supposed to learn to be gracious when an adult who is supposed to be an example is being unpleasant. In fact I wonder if the head was bad at sport as they are clearly an unpleasant adult.

Op I kept dd off one year when she was about 6. Youngest in year and very self conscious. We had a lovely day reading in the garden studiously ignoring all the yelling (live close to school). She really likes running now and is pretty good at hockey (13). Sports day a hang over from the ancient Greeks. It will be fair when the kids who are weaker academically get to do a spelling bee in front of a baying crowd. But guess that’s too mean

@summerishereatlast: I so agree with you. For me, it was ritual humiliation and one of the great things about going to secondary was no fucking sports days.

It also put me off ever doing anything sporty, ever. At 14 or thereabouts, I was so utterly useless that games teachers turned a blind eye to a couple of us who gave up sport in favour of smoking behind the pavilion.

Is resilience something you learn through public humiliation if that’s your worst fear? Learning to lose well is when you’ve entered a contest you had a possible chance of winning, life is all about picking good battles, not being a happy loser over and over again as you’ve picked the wrong contest.

Sports day should be voluntary, like acting in plays or performing musical pieces, strictly for those with aptitude.

we will never get proper athletes if we dont compete surely, although it sounds harsh

And completely wrong/irrelevant to the OP’s situation.

There may have been 300 people watching but literally noone cares. Does he comprehend that?

Of course he doesn't he's eleven for God's sake.

There's no need for all children to take part in sports day. let the sporty kids have there day - great for them to show their talents, and let the non sporty kids sit and watch. You can take part in sports lessons at school without having to demonstrate it in front of a crowd of parents eahc year.

I remember being verbally berated by some complete lunatic of a parent at sports day, because my 4yr old ds's plimsoll fell off and he stopped, sat down and put it on again while the rest of the race ran over the line apparently i should have taught him that in a race for 4 year olds you keep must running even if an atom bomb lands on your head. Because, you know 'it really MATTERS' .

Sports day brings out the lunatic parents. And the head teacher sound like a total tool. I'd encourage your Ds in the activities he deos enjoy and keep him off on sports day.

YANBU and the headteacher is an eejit.

I was crap at sports at school, as is DD. I always wonder why it's okay to humiliate kids in that way, yet most people wouldn't dream of publishing their Maths scores in order of achievement publicly.

It took me a long time to make peace with sports after many years of hiding in the changing rooms or coming up with strategies to go unnoticed during lessons and events and now I happily work out 5X a week. DH - being partially sighted - was forced onto the field to play rugby and cricket when he couldn't see the ball and HATED all sports and now cycles 26 miles a day and does 100 mile races for fun. I wish we could come up with a better way of helping kids find the kind of activity that they love, faster, rather than completely putting them off. If I wasn't so vain I'd probably have given up on physical activity and be overweight now!

Sports day is the equivalent of making every child stand up in front of the school plus their parents and answer maths questions. When someone gets an answer embarrassingly wrong, they have to suck it up and let the maths geniuses have 'their chance to shine.' That would just never happen. What does happen is the child who is shit at maths gets tonnes and tonnes of extra help.

I agree with everything you've said. You just forgot the bit about the child who is struggling to work out the maths questions then getting everyone cheering and clapping and shouting them on. Is it encouragement or humilation, are they supporting them or taking the piss?

I remember the humiliation of coming last in an all school race. 300 parents, 150 of us competing, and me coming dead last. Yes, I smashed my GCSEs and A levels, and of that 150 I’m definitely in the top 10% of “doing well” whichever way you look at it 15 years on.

But it put me off sport for life and I’m too embarrassed to run in public now. Consider myself very resilient professionally and in my personal life but that’s stigmatised sport for me forever. It’s shit.

Sports days are optional : so next year just don't participate.

My eldest dd hated sports day because of her dyspraxia and detested sports such as hockey, athletics because of this....however she was a brilliant swimmer and consistently came first in galas and was a brilliant water polo player ...but sadly this didn't register with the school PE department
Hasn't held her back in life though and she graduated with a 2:1 and is now associate director of studies in English aged 25!

yep been there. It was tough. Until the school started to introduce silly races (they had a relay race for example where kids had to dress up as santa one bit at a time along the racing track, it was hilarious, and a space hopper race, and walk backwards race, etc) alongside the sprint race at the end. By the time the long race came along the kids had such a good time laughing that the long race didn't really matter any more than the other fun races. Parents loved it too. DS actually won the space hopper race, the only race he's ever won. anyway, it's a tough one but do speak to the head and suggest a better way of doing the sports day or otherwise it's not worth it. Keep your DS at home next year and take him out somewhere fab.

I was that kid, though I grinned my way round the long run as I crawled in last. And got mocked for that too!

YADNBU OP.

Home ed suddenly becomes very appealing...

It’ll take months to undo the damage

Don't be so ridiculous. OP you're making a huge mountain out of a molehill. If he hates it so much that it will cause months of damage then you should have kept him off school. Taking 3 weeks off because the head told him to stop making a fuss? Well was he making a fuss?

I’m with the head on this one. Children need to learn graciously, otherwise they grow into very unpleasant adults

And children learn precisely nothing by being publicly humiliated. Rather the reverse.

I really don't understand this privileging of sport over every other subject at school. Is there a Maths Day?

Every day is a maths day.

That aside, it's all well and good teaching your child how to be resilient but EVERY race?
You should request a meeting with the HT. Be factual though. Saying 'it'll take months for him to recover' or suchlike will sound like a whinge.

Dumpling. At my dds school I would say the clapping was definitely support. From the parents it's the recognition that this simply isn't fair. The problem is, the child being clapped will not see it as support; they see it as exacerbating their humiliation.

You don't have to be fast. Just fitter and more used to running. If you learn to run properly you won't come last

But someone always has to come last.

Im one of these really shit parents that would pull their kid out of school for the morning/afternoon while sports day is happening. I can vividly remember the humiliation of coming last in every sporting event.

Don’t bother speaking to the HT. Only someone completely clueless would behave like that.

I really don't understand this privileging of sport over every other subject at school. Is there a Maths Day?

Our school had a prize giving and there were prizes for maths/English etc.

I really don't understand this privileging of sport over every other subject at school. Is there a Maths Day?

Yes let's cheer on 300 kids all day whilst they recite their times tables. Sounds like a blast.

I let Dd stay off on sports day- we had a lovely day together- am not remotely sorry. YANBU

Meh.

I hope the kids who use wheelchairs don't feel humiliated by always coming in last. Because it's apparently such an awful thing for some children who are just Not Very Good At It. Maybe you'll have a child join the school who does - sounds like your DS will feel much better then.

I hated Athletics. I was usually last or second last. Didn't kill me to have to do it once a year, though. Certainly didn't traumatise me for life or lead to my throwing tantrums, either. Later on, I found out that it was just the type of events I wasn't great at - I turned out to be pretty handy at the 200m and could chuck various items rather a long way. I was also good at shinty, hockey, dance, rockclimbing and martial arts and none too bad at persuading a horse to carry me around without trying to kill me.

If I'd decided on the basis of my performance in the Grotbags Junior School Sports Day 1982 Jogging Backwards Race that it was reasonable to never try anything I wasn't 100% convinced I would be at least average at, if not The Best, I'd never have found those out. still fell on my arse occasionally with a few of those, too

There were kids who won the races who couldn't come top of the class in spelling tests, who couldn't play instruments, couldn't draw well - I would think that it would probably have cheered them up to have something they were good at that I wasn't.

I'm with the Head on this one. He needs to learn to cope with failure, or he'll be screwed psychologically any time there's a chance he might not be good at something first time or has to put work in to succeed, never mind when there are things that he will still have to do whether he's good at them or not.