Should sports day be optional?

[Nothinglefttosaynow]

I remember dreading sports day as a child, I was slow & awkward and always near the end if not last. It was public embarrassment for me & I dreaded it. My nephew has sports day next week & is already worrying about it. He is fit and healthy but not a fast runner & has come last for the past 3 years. I absolutely agree with kids taking part in sport at school & at home, but I wonder if forcing kids who clearly don't enjoy it to participate in front of a crowd is fair.

I think it would be better to have sports day but close it to parents but I bet lots would be up in arms about that.

I too hated sports day, but then many kids hated academic subjects. I don't think you can have one as an opt out and not another

Yes, absolutely

No way. That's like saying kids can opt out of maths and English if they don't like it. Physical education is key especially in the UK where there are many overweight people

The parents are ridiculing the kids that come last at your school?! You should probably get the school to interfere with that as that’s not okay.

But the first time I had to do a presentation to 50 people, I did not shine. No one walked away saying how great my presentation was. But it was part of my job I needed to do, and having been put in uncomfortable (but safe) positions before, I was better equipped to deal with the nerves and worries.

When I lived abroad literally every conversation in a foreign language felt embarrassing, but again resilience from childhood taught me I can survive situations that I am not ‘good’ at, even if they are unpleasant.

There’s plenty of things in life I need to do that I’m not good at or that I don’t look forward to. I’m grateful that my childhood taught my that I’m capable of dealing with that and that I developed coping mechanisms along the way.

But yes, the ridiculing of what I am assuming are primary age children should really stop…

No onè is saying PE should be optional, only that public humiliation should be optional

pe definitely should be compulsory though. It’s just sports day doesn’t really give any physical benefits. They sit out all day in the heat waiting their turn for a sprint of about 50m

Same with SATs - they give academic kids a time to shine, and sports day gives sporty kids a time to shine.

Do they publish the results publicly, so every parent can see every child’s result? Because that’s the fair comparison here.

@OneHeartySnail it's only humiliation if you need to improve

The public /private dynamic is also a valid concern as sports day is so public.

However, I’ve definitely seen kids who struggle to read being asked to read aloud or kids who struggle to present being asked to do so give solo talks.

It’s a tricky one and I’m undecided.

Humble brag here lol but I was the fastest kid in my class and also was among the handful of kids scoring the highest on national testing so as much as I loved sports day I didn’t “need” it for validation perhaps the same way some other kids did. I don’t know how it feels to be a kid who is always behind academically and then get your chance to “shine”

The school is getting it all wrong if it's public humiliation. It's ok for people to see you trying your best at something you're not naturally talented at. It's never ok to humiliate someone.

Exactly so!

But you aren't comparing like with like.

No and I say this as someone who hated sports day in school.

In primary it was a lot of fun and it was never about the individual winner, they scored housepoints and the house won, not the child. So there was an even distribution of sporty and non-sporty children.

The school also has a SEN section, some of the children aren't able to do more then a walk, not a run and it was amazing to see how everyone supported them, cheered them on and often by unspoken agreement everyone walked instead of running.
DD once purposely lost her javelin throw as one boy got agitated as he didn't manage more than just a feet and she just let it fall on the ground so he wouldn't be last. Everyone knew what she did and nobody commented.

In Secondary it was a bit more painful as you had a whole day but only did one thing, most were sitting around, hearing music, playing card games. Luckily the weather was always good.

I wasn’t good at sport, but I enjoyed the trip out. We got to talk, sit in the sun etc. enjoyed calling on friends. Lots of races were silly enough to be won by anyone, sacks, egg and spoon, monkey crawl, strange obstacles.
By high school there was an interesting range, long jump , shot put, javelin etc. interesting to experience it all.
It was generally a bit of a jolly and we had a laugh , there was no real kudos to winning and most of us left not noticing who had won.
When I taught most children seemed to act the same. We had children in wheelchairs ace egg and spoon for obvious reasons, children with dyspraxia win monkey crawls etc. We swapped it up each year for fun and to have something everyone had a chance in, a lot was silly too. Teacher races were popular and we’d ham it up.
I think the angst was mainly parental ehe it did rise up

It's not at all like that. The relevant comparison would be opting out of PE as a subject entirely.

Also, the environment in the UK that has created a majority overweight adult population is one where sports day has been compulsory for most adults schooling. It evidently hasn't worked!

School can't control what the kids call you on the day and afterwards.

Absolutely not!! It's so important for everyone's well being that children partake in sport and realise that life has elements of competition. The day they make sports day optional is the day I die!

That's true. But for academic subjects, music, art etc there is no public humiliation of those who struggle. Awards are given to those who do well, and their achievement is celebrated, but we don't ask those who did worst to stand up have their lack of ability recognised publicly. At many sports days every child has to take part in something and those who come last are seen to do so very publicly (and in some cases moaned at or worse by their house for not doing better).

Personally, I think we should have sports days but they should either be optional or there should be some competitive events for the sporty kids to shine and other 'have a go' non-competitive type events so children can try new activities and perhaps find something they enjoy. I think we need to encourage all children to find some physical activity that they enjoy, so that there's more chance of them being fitter as adults. Traditional sports days just put non-sporty kids of all sports. Just as I'm sure it would put non-academic kids off any sort of life long learning if their experience at school was having their failures publicised.

Then it’s not about parents being there, it’s about kids being there. The same kids that see their peers struggle with reading and times tables on a daily basis. We don’t let kids opts out of academics because they might get called thick by their classmates…

They have to do the academics every day though. Day in day out getting sums wrong and struggling to read aloud while your classmates fly ahead. A weekly spelling test where you get them wrong or everyone is aware that you have the different, easier, list of words to learn.

Yes sports day is more public, but it's one day. One single day all year.

And if the school gets it right (which surely most do these days!) it's a day of fun and teamwork and cheering for everyone. Even 30 years ago my complete lack of talent didn't come anywhere near public humiliation.

And then the next day, I was back to getting everything right in class, and the girls who won the races were back to struggling. I wasn't the one who was hard done by.

Our secondary school did an optional sports day, now I think of it. I was not sporty but I liked being involved so I volunteered to set up events and basically marshal. The really sporty children had a great time competing. I liked that approach.

Children that excel in anything usually get a mention in the school newsletter.
If you're particularly sporty chances are you do sports outside of school as well - most primary school sport is group participation rather than specialist or technical skills - you you could show or celebrate your award/certificate in assembly, or have it published in the newsletter. Ditto drama, music, chess or anything else that children are good at!

Sports day is optional at DCs secondary school and in DDs class at least, almost all the girls choose not to participate . They simply wear their house colours and cheer on those who chose to do it. No parents involved

I hated sports day but that's like saying a geography part of the curriculum should be optional

You can’t please everyone.

You could have it that heats/selection are behind closed doors, then only the ones that want to compete will be “on show”.

But some might still be upset that their parents weren’t there and they didn’t get to race.

Our school had “fun” races as well as competitive races - 3 legged and egg and spoon etc. But if you’re not sporty, you’re unlikely to somehow be good at these either. And they take tortuously longer. At least flat races are over quite soon.

My children didn’t enjoy it. They were sanguine about coming last though. They totally expected to, so that part didn’t upset them.

I was always last too. I personally hated that the parents would shout encouragement and clap me the loudest. It felt that it was drawing attention to me more.

But some children probably enjoy being acknowledged and encouraged.

I don’t think it should necessarily be optional though. Most things at school aren’t optional after all!
I think I think the best way is grouping by ability a bit. Get rid of the humiliating “fun” races that take up lots of time.
Let the slower ones race against each other, then it doesn’t look so obvious, and some of them can still win a medal.
Or maybe split sprinters and longer distance runners, again slower ones might do better over a longer race. It could be going on at the same time as the sprints.