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Mixed gender race at sports day

297 replies

littlegreydevil · 12/07/2023 16:14

Hi, long time lurker but first post and I’m aware I am stepping in with a particularly hot topic but here goes…
Our primary school organised its annual sports day this week and for unknown reasons, decided to mix boys and girls for the sprints. Teams are usually mixed genders for the less competitive activities like the sack race, egg and spoon race, etc. but this is the first time they’ve mixed genders for the competitive races. Of course this has resulted in only 2 girls making the podium across all the year groups and both “only” hitting third place.
I’m really bothered by this as I thought sports day was about celebrating sporting achievements and encouraging kids to enjoy sports (I know this can be disputed but that’s a whole other debate) and today, I have watched a ream of very sporty, very talented female runners lose to their male counterparts and I can’t see how that fits in the ethos of sports day.
I am planning to speak to the head to question their motives in making this odd decision.
imo sport is gendered for a reason and it should be about equity rather than equality. You might be able to argue that younger age groups could be mixed as supposedly their physical ability is the same up to age 7 or 8 (need to find the references for this) but from year 2 onwards, it doesn’t work anymore. Girls start going through puberty from as young as 9 so by that point, it should be gendered.
For full transparency, I have 2 children, a boy and a girl, neither of which is talented in athletics (they are very good in other sports) and usually come in at a solid bottom 3rd place so this is not about my kids being slighted.
If you were me, what questions would you ask from the head and, seeing as they have a track record of being quite obstinate, what arguments would you produce?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
NowItsLikeSnowAtTheBeach · 12/07/2023 17:05

Girls are not at a disadvantage at primary school ages. They grow first and faster than boys, and are often stronger, into early secondary years.

kayserah · 12/07/2023 17:06

I wouldn’t have thought twice about this in primary school.

RufustheSpecuIatingreindeer · 12/07/2023 17:08

My childrens sports days were always sex segregated for races and only the top children ran

they did have mixed team games for the rest of of day which always worked well

Helleofabore · 12/07/2023 17:08

eatdrinkandbemerry · 12/07/2023 16:58

It's bloody school not the olympics 🤷‍♀️
I just couldn't imagine finding the energy to moan about sports day 😂

Considering the top 2 from the races got to go to represent the school it was quite important for us. You might feel that winning is worthless, but it builds confidence and encourages girls to play other sports.

RufustheSpecuIatingreindeer · 12/07/2023 17:09

Oh and i absolutely would have had a problem if the races were mixed sex

Helleofabore · 12/07/2023 17:10

NowItsLikeSnowAtTheBeach · 12/07/2023 17:05

Girls are not at a disadvantage at primary school ages. They grow first and faster than boys, and are often stronger, into early secondary years.

And the studies show this is incorrect.

Greenfree · 12/07/2023 17:12

My DD's primary school always have mixed races, I'm not sure what the junior school will be like but we've always had fun and her sports day and the girls often win the races.

JustHereWithMyPopcorn · 12/07/2023 17:14

Our primary school always did girls races and boys races separately. I see no need for them to now make them mixed sex. Girls will lose out other than the one or two very sporty ones.

toomanyleggings · 12/07/2023 17:15

Our school has always done mixed for everything. I can’t get excited about it at this point really but maybe I should.

mogtheexcellent · 12/07/2023 17:16

Races should be split by sex from Y5 onwards imo.

Its so demoralising for girls who then are put off sport.

Bookworm20 · 12/07/2023 17:19

This was the same at my dc primary a few days ago. ALL the sprints were won my boys, except a couple of races by the year 1's and 2's. Above that, the boys won every time.

I thought the same, like why on earth are they running them mixed. The girls are clearly not going to have a chance at winning any of these. I didn't really understand it. They also seemed to mix complete differences in ability too for things like the hurdles. Multiple races had 3 fast, obviously sporty boys in and one who was very obviously not sporty whatsoever. I thought why not put the non sporty ones in the same race so they didn't stand out and lose quite so obviously.

But can't really get wound up about it, I imagine it was tricky to organise and they just plucked kids from the group and off they went.

I did feel a bit sorry though for the ones racing against very sporty kids or the girls against the boys when they were very clearly never going to win.

AuntieHippy · 12/07/2023 17:22

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

TwinsPlusAnotherOne · 12/07/2023 17:23

DS1 was in tiny private school. If they didn't do mixed races, he would have been competing with just himself. They mixed all the boys and girls for the first 3 years. He won "wonkiest walker" as the youngest child in the school and was thrilled.

littlegreydevil · 12/07/2023 17:24

Thank you for responding. I’m sorry I mixed up gender and sex, English is not my first language, but duly noted.
To answer some comments:

  • many parents were upset about the mixed sex races and some want to write an open letter to the head
  • it is a biggish school (3 form entry so 90 kids per year with no major imbalances between numbers of boys and girls)
  • all the other activities are in mixed sex teams which works fine but the sprints always used to be split boys/girls
  • to those saying it is fine in primary, obviously it is not seeing as only 2 girls vs 19 boys made the podium. It obviously puts girls at a disadvantage and it was really sad to watch girls who have made a consistent top 3 finish in previous years relegated to the bottom of the pile by the boys. Some take it very seriously and were obviously crushed. I can’t see how that is in any way ok.
OP posts:
Daffodil92 · 12/07/2023 17:25

Come on. It’s a primary school sports day, not the olympics.

Helleofabore · 12/07/2023 17:25

I cannot find an open access link to the the Greek Schoolchildren study. It showed that boys at 6 had advantage over girls. This is a paragraph from a peer reviewed review of those studies:

"In early childhood, prior to puberty, sporting participation prioritises team play and the development of fundamental motor and social skills, and is sometimes mixed sex. Athletic performance differences between males and females prior to puberty are often considered inconsequential or relatively small . Nonetheless, pre-puberty performance differences are not unequivocally negligible, and could be mediated, to some extent, by genetic factors and/or activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis during the neonatal period, sometimes referred to as “minipuberty”. For example, some 6500 genes are differentially expressed between males and females with an estimated 3000 sex-specific differences in skeletal muscle likely to influence composition and function beyond the effects of androgenisation while increased testosterone during minipuberty in males aged 1–6 months may be correlated with higher growth velocity and an “imprinting effect” on BMI and bodyweight . An extensive review of fitness data from over 85,000 Australian children aged 9–17 years old showed that, compared with 9-year-old females, 9-year-old males were faster over short sprints (9.8%) and 1 mile (16.6%), could jump 9.5% further from a standing start (a test of explosive power), could complete 33% more push-ups in 30 s and had 13.8% stronger grip . Male advantage of a similar magnitude was detected in a study of Greek children, where, compared with 6-year-old females, 6-year-old males completed 16.6% more shuttle runs in a given time and could jump 9.7% further from a standing position. In terms of aerobic capacity, 6- to 7-year-old males have been shown to have a higher absolute and relative (to body mass) VO2max than 6- to 7-year-old females . Nonetheless, while some biological sex differences, probably genetic in origin, are measurable and affect performance pre-puberty, we consider the effect of androgenizing puberty more influential on performance, and have focused our analysis on musculoskeletal differences hereafter."

This is the link to the study that looked at the two children's sports studies.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3

Again, why would a school treat girls in a way that will not encourage them to compete and to do further sport?

Fair enough that it seems many parents on this thread disregard girl's needs to be able to compete fairly, or simply will ignore the studies that disprove their opinions that 'up to x age it is fair'. But the schools should not be treating girls this way.

Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage - Sports Medicine

Males enjoy physical performance advantages over females within competitive sport. The sex-based segregation into male and female sporting categories does not account for transgender persons who experience incongruence between their biological sex and...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3

OhmygodDont · 12/07/2023 17:27

The problem is the podium.

My dd just did her sports day and in all the actual races came 2nd or 3rd to boys. However they didn’t win anything for winning those races these where more just because.

All children got medals and a house winner will be announced tomorrow.

OhmygodDont · 12/07/2023 17:28

Oh and she’s not put off because she kicked 6/7 other boys arses and is off to football club tomorrow to beat some more boys 😂

Helleofabore · 12/07/2023 17:29

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

Please do some research into your theories. It has been researched and it has been extensively modelled.

Even people of different sex at the same height and weight, the average male will have a physical advantage over the average female person. Much more advantage than a person of the same sex with a height difference.

While you feel it is regressive, what you advocate for is dangerous in some instances and harmful in most.

In MMA fights with 'matched' weights, males are breaking female athletes skulls because somebody thought this was a good idea.

ErrolTheDragon · 12/07/2023 17:30

@Helleofabore
Fair enough that it seems many parents on this thread disregard girl's needs to be able to compete fairly, or simply will ignore the studies that disprove their opinions that 'up to x age it is fair'. But the schools should not be treating girls this way.

There's always some who think their personal anecdata trumps actual studies, I'm afraid.

Marmalady75 · 12/07/2023 17:31

There will have been one namby pamby person involved in the planning that has said they should be mixed “in case a child is struggling with their gender identity”. I’ve been in one of those discussions - we now have mixed activities instead of single sex races 😡

Dinosauratemydaffodils · 12/07/2023 17:31

Our primary school has single sex races. There is a boy and a girl champion per year group.

According to the head, based on the historical results...boys would have won everything since she arrived at the school if it was mixed.

Helleofabore · 12/07/2023 17:32

ErrolTheDragon · 12/07/2023 17:30

@Helleofabore
Fair enough that it seems many parents on this thread disregard girl's needs to be able to compete fairly, or simply will ignore the studies that disprove their opinions that 'up to x age it is fair'. But the schools should not be treating girls this way.

There's always some who think their personal anecdata trumps actual studies, I'm afraid.

Yes Errol rather.

And then there is always the 'didn't harm my child', yet people wonder why girls don't do sports.

PuttingDownRoots · 12/07/2023 17:32

If the children are upset its worth noting it to the school so they can improve next year.

I was "that" parent a few years ago when I pointed out the reason my 6yo was crying was taking three children off to the winners area, when there is four children in a race, leaving one behind on the finishing line with no clue where to go would probably be very upsetting!

A big part of sport is fairness. They aren't promoting fair play if they ignore acknowledged physical differences.. hence why sport is split in the first place.

hettiethehare · 12/07/2023 17:32

Ours is mixed sex in the EYFC and KS1 years, and then KS2 (from 7-8) they are separate sexes.

I'm fairly happy with this and think it works well.

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