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.

The thing with the academics and sports comparisons is that we have a system where we do actually need the exams to do a lot of things later on. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's the system we have.

Whereas we do not have a system where sports day is needed for anything. It clearly doesn't foster a climate of exercise in adults, when you look at exercise levels.

It really isn’t the case that all the dc who are struggling with maths get to shine on sports day.
I would also say that it’s a very small minority of kids who are super sporty and academically struggling. Most sporty kids at my dc school are doing absolutely fine academically and many excel is sports and academics. And there are plenty dc who don’t do well at maths and also come last in sports day.

Important point.

These threads always involve people setting it up as a chance to shine for the sporty kids who don't do well academically. Actually, there's no correlation between high academic and low sporting ability, or vice versa. Some people are just brilliant at both, and some good at neither.

Yes, probably.
My DD ended up helping the results and scoring team instead. We had years of sports day meltdowns before the school let her avoid it.

I think it needs to be re- thought out in many schools. I understand what people are saying, that some kids are sporty but not academic and some are academic and not sporty but it’s the public aspect of sports day that makes it difficult for children who aren’t good at it. No one watches kids come last in maths test.

i taught in a school and we did a round robin situation. Kids Would be in age related groups of 12 and then we would do 3 groups of 4 and do javelin, fun obstacle races, throwing etc. parents followed their child around so it wasn’t every single Ks2 parent watching every race. It was a bit tricky for parents with more than one child in the juniors but it wasn’t a massive field so they could watch 2 at a time. Most kids ended up with at least a third place sticker in something.

my dc primary school, everyone watches the races but they’re grouped in ability. They do make this quite obvious with the fastest 4 going first and then the next 4 and so on until you get to the slowest 4. However you’ve got a good chance of getting a sticker and the younger kids don’t realise they’re grouped by ability. They also do fun relay races with funny dress up aspects to them so it’s not all serious and competitive. Still probably a hard day for those who hate sport and feel self conscious though

I also hated sports day as a child, I was asthmatic and slow and always came last. I still remember the humiliation.

My childrens primary school has a really great sports day set up. There is a morning event for p1 to p3 and afternoon P4 to p7.
The 3/4 years are divided into mixed age teams. They collect points at sporty stations.
The kids win or lose as a team together. It's great. All the kids really enjoy it.

My oldest has just went to high school and it's the old method and she hates it.

Ok but the academics comparison is closer to PE lessons than sports day. I was a slow runner, my peers knew I was a slow runner from our PE lessons just as I knew X struggled with maths from our maths classes. We didn’t have a whole day dedicated to publically showing the world she was crap at maths too though.

And for those of you saying ‘it’s lovely and supportive’… 20 years ago I came last in the one mile race at sports day. By quite a margin. The entire crowd was cheering for me to finish. They all would probably describe that as a ‘supportive’ experience. Good for them. I was the one running it and it was utterly humiliating. I didn’t care that they meant it nicely, it felt so embarrassing to have the focus of hundreds of people on me as I fucked something up.

I think sports day is relatively unique in that parents watch and often there are medals (although this is rarer now)

The drama performances are also watched, but they dont make a child that can't sing have a solo. They generally get to hide in a group or do the lights.

Therfore, i think a competitive sports day with spectators should be for people who want to do it

I think you could have a sports event that was internal though. I dont think coming last matters in that situation, as its right that its easy to see who is not academic or not creative so its nice for some people to get a chance to shine or be not the best.

I'm intrigued at how many people seem to think its either/or or mutually exclusive - Academic ability v sporting ability;
Johnny really struggles with Maths but won the running race by miles
Poppy can solve quadratic equations in her sleep but will be likely be last.

In reality there are plenty of kids who are decent at both, lots of very average kids who don't shine at either and some who struggle with both academics and sports!

No but in a school that stamps on that kind of name calling day to day, and emphasises teamwork and doing your best over winning on sports day it's much less likely.

It really isn't.

This is true. The sportiest boy (by a fair margin) in my DS year is also one of the cleverest (in every subject).

Yes, it should be optional.

General PE/exercise should be compulsory, but a competitive event in front of parents, when children feel humiliated, doesn't encourage a love of sports/exercise.

It also doesn't teach resilience to simply be routinely humiliated, which is what often happens. There's no 'teaching' involved. If children were taught how to improve at sports, were allowed to do non-competitive activities, were given optional chances to compete in races at the right level, and actively taught about sportsmanship and helped to come to terms with feeling bad about not winning something, that would be different. But many sports days are not like this. They involve humiliation, year after year, in front of an audience, and the experience of coming last (and in some cases, the active feeling of others that the academic children who happen to be bad at sports need 'taking down a peg' by showing them they are bad) is just supposed to in itself teach resilience. I think is just teaches them to hate sports, to hate competition, and to feel bad about themselves.

Let children who enjoy competitive races do them in public with an audience. The others can do non competitive activities, or activities without the whole school watching, or get actually taught how to run/jump better, or learn to find other physical activities fun so that they might carry them on in future.

I dont think the day should be optional but the format in many schools needs rethought to be more rounded and running races should be optional or have private qualifying rounds before the day.
the day should include some team games some “field” events and target based like boules and some cooperative team games like tug of war. The day should be a well rounded celebration of sports and activity and genuinely accessible to all.

Yes of course, this is very true. I think it happens because of the "no one has to fail their maths test in front of the whole school and all parents" comparisons. But of course it's not a valid comparison as maths tests happen all the time, and sports day once a year.

School is like grown-up life, there's lots of different aspects that some will enjoy and others hate - maths, English, science, sports, music, art (omg seeing my shitty art displayed on the wall next to talented classmates' ), the Nativity, choir, etc etc etc.

I can't get worked up about something that lasts one day.

I think they should come up with some sporting 'events' so that everyone can enjoy the event. Perhaps as part of a team.

Like behind the scenes organising roles so kids can be proud of something even though they don't have a physical ability.

Like they do in drama when some children paint the scenery because they don't like acting or whatever. It's something that's important and part of team work and their good art work is appreciated by all who watch the play.

Perhaps using maths to design the size of the running track for the races or sporting arenas or something that contributes to the event and putting in the markers for the linesman to do the lining. Or have a build a robot (robot-wars style)that races in a competition or something.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but basically that teams could be involved rather than individuals and it shouldn't just be about who can run fastest in this day and age. There should be no reason for some children to fear the day. They should all be included.

I was terrible at maths and terrible at sports. A real a for effort, e for attainment (showing my age here) pupil. I still agree with sports day but it shouldn't be in front of parents.
My child follows me and is very clumsy. Last year he did a race in reception, he was the youngest in the year as a summer born, and spectacularly lost. They had to put a tshirt on, run grab a book, run grab a Teddy and run over the line. He couldn't even get the bottom of the tshirt to separate by the time everyone else had finished and although everyone was cheering him, I and him felt the pain of being the youngest, least coordinated and not yet 5!
I doubt much will change this year but once do want hom to always try because some things you can improve with practice, some things you might be naturally good at and being able to laugh at yourself is also a good skill to have. I just don't think all the parents need to be there to witness it.

Yes I absolutely agree. It's not the competitive element that puts me off or the fact a child might lose, this does indeed teach resilience. It is the fact it happens so publicly in front of the whole school and parents. Last year's sports day at our primary there were lots of tears from children who are either shy or body conscious, especially girls already going through puberty. It can be quite humiliating.

Yes, I think it should be. I used to keep one of my children off in primary school for it, despite her being sporty. It just wasn’t something that was ok for her. My son loved it.

Thankfully at my daughters secondary school it’s optional.

Other kids tend to be cruel to the weak if given a chance. Making all your peers see how crap you are can foster this. No amount of encouragement or ridicule was going to improve my speed or coordination, so I was being mocked and ridiculed for something I had no control over. Pointless and not a life lesson - nothing since has been anything like as shit.

I think they should do it but parents shouldn’t be allowed to attend. Only because I’ve got my kid’s sports day this afternoon and I really can’t be arsed!

I think at second level it should be optional, and genuinely competitive, so those who are athletic can shine (and hopefully be supported to compete beyond the school if they wish) but nobody else is forced to participate or be an audience.

At primary level it is a free for all which most children enjoy, and honestly it is impossible to know who came first or what the fuck was going on, if my son's school is anything to go by.

In my day they just lined us all up on one side of the field, Sr Eileen blew the whistle, and first to the other hedge was the winner. Now it's all relays and twirl to the 25 line then bear walk to the 50 line - none of them are listening and they are all doing different things 🙄

I think it should be compulsory, but if shouldn’t be all individual competitive races.

DS’s is done in houses, so the team who wins in the one where every person in the house has finished. It’s mostly obstacle races or racing between skills like a mini-heptathlon (run to station one, kick a ball into an open goal. Run to station 2 and crawl through a tunnel. Run to station 3 and throw a javelin, etc). I don’t see the problem with that, and I was always the slowest in my year, every year from reception to year 11z

I've always done the same for my DC who hates it. Other one is a fan. And I wagged every single one when I was at secondary. I've often wondered, actually, what it does to school absence rates. There are a lot of days off that will be taken specifically because of it.

Yeah I couldn't agree more. To be honest I was never good at sports and sports day was always seen as fun for the sporty kids who wanted to excel but a way of developing sportsmanship and a bit of fun for the non-sporty kids.
To be honest in school in general I was always in the last to bottom/bottom sets and crap at sports in an uber competitive school and yeah it did teach me resilience. It wasn't nice at the time but it helped me reflect and explore what my strengths were and develop those.
Life is literally full of setbacks - people go on about resilience and I massively agree but also the setbacks and disappointments are so vital for understanding yourself. Failure is so incredibly important for character development. We can't keep letting our kids opt out of difficult experiences!!!