Sports day shock

[Mrslarge24]

My children have recently had their sports days.
I have one very sporty child, and one that gets very anxious about anything sport-related and dreads sports day! Much like myself as a kid.
One sports day was for y3&y4, the other was for Y5 & y6.
I was amazed at the lack of general fitness in so many of the kids.
They had to do a "long-distance run" which was about 200m. A huge amount of them couldn't run it all and some didn't even make it half way before walking and panting.
My non-sporty one managed it fine, because although he doesn't enjoy much sport we do go for long walks, he plays in the garden alot and loves swimming with us so has a basic fitness level. Much like myself, I'm no fitness fanatic!
AIBU to think this is shocking to see children of this age not be able to run/jog 200m?!
i guess it's computers/iPads etc but at what point does a parent start to feel ashamed to have let their children get so unfit?!
Made me feel quite sad 😢

They dont. The parents are unfit too. Lots are proud of it.

That sound horrendous OP! Do your children actually do PE at school, and if so, how much and what do they do, as this really is an appalling situation for our kids to be in? I'm not surprised you were shocked!

at what point does a parent start to feel ashamed to have let their children get so unfit?!

I'd imagine they don't know. Everyone is inside, no one runs or walks with their kids.

DD did a 5km obstacle course with me recently. Everyone found out that day! But if the parents don't, the children won't.

it is a real worry - but 200m is a long sprint, and will require anaerobic respiration, which children may not be used to

Yes, they have P.E but only once a week. I was honestly gobsmacked and wondered if this was common elsewhere.

The 200m was considered to be the long distance run. Their sprint was only about 40m. There were some that point blank refused to run the sprint!

I’m a teacher. It’s become really noticeable over the last several years. PE provision hasn’t changed so it’s not that. Although we do it twice a week in our school.

Pretty normal where I live, a lot of the kids are also obese. They do the daily mile but stop at year 3 and it is noticeable that the kids who are not moving much at home stack on the weight after this point.

My kids get sick of me saying it but I insist that every day we move our bodies outside - it can be just a five minute walk but if we want healthy adults, we need healthy kids who understand what their bodies need.

I work in a primary school and sadly this doesn't surprise me. On a recent school trip, some of our 11 year olds struggled to walk up 3 flights of stairs!

I'd imagine they don't know. Everyone is inside, no one runs or walks with their kids.
that is simply not true for where i live. Kids are out on bikes and playing football in the evenings and weekends all the time. People go walking as families. Children are also hobbied up to the eyeballs. But it is an affluent area. And hobbies are expensive, especially sporting ones.

what concerns me is how many children cannot swim.

Oh it's so sad isn't it 😢
Difficult to know where to begin in addressing it but the daily mile was something ours did in infants too now you mention it. Maybe they need to make it a daily thing for juniors, I might suggest it!

I'm a primary school teacher and lots struggle as they simple don't get enough exercise, their parents are the same. It seems to have gotten worse as less children spend time outside.

why does that concern you? Most drownings are swimmers

My ds in yr6 loves PE and they are supposed to do it twice a week but he comes home a lot and says it was cancelled or they were too busy writing to do PE that day.

They did start a running club at one point which he really enjoyed but that didn't last long before he said his teacher kept saying it was cancelled every time and then never started again.

I do see some kids out playing in the evenings but do find more are keeping them in where they're safe now. Kids aren't being allowed out to play until much older now, my 10 yr old isn't yet but I think I would let him go to our very local play area if some of his friends would also be allowed!
I know they're all different but some people do seem to think there are paedophiles on every corner now 🙈

Our primary school did the daily mile all through up to Yr 6. They had a massive playing field too so lots of opportunities to exercise at breaks playing out.

We used to do the daily mile at my school however the head said it "wasn't a good use of time". Which really annoys me as there are so many children who benefitted from it!

Wow my daughter's favourite event at sports day is the 800m run!

200m is a short distance.

That's quite shocking.

200m is NOT a long sprint!!

You do realise that 1 in 4 school children are in poverty and many in temporary accommodation, they may not have time or money or anywhere safe to play out.

That’s really sad.

At our school they’d use it as a destress or reset time. It really helped loads of kids who need to move to concentrate. It was at the teacher’s discretion when during the day to do it. Probably helped that it was quite an outdoorsy school and lots of pretty fitness-oriented teachers, I guess.

Primary teacher here and it’s so noticeable that fitness levels have declined in the last ten years. And it’s always the really unfit children whose parents excuse them from PE/sports day, saying that it makes them anxious because everyone else is better than them.

I'm surprised in primary as when mine were there, and anecdotally still now, lots do football out of school and at school, other clubs out of school, and are in the school athletics team (mine weren't bothered but they were outliers). There will always be a few who don't join in, either due to physical ability or type of special need, but it must depend on the type of school and maybe setting ie rural or city centre.

200m is quite long at primary if you try to go as fast as you would for 100m.

I don't think the parents of the non-sporty kids should be ashamed. Should parents whose kids are behind expectations for maths or english be ashamed?

There were grumblings at our primary when they started running round the field a fee times every morning. Funnily enough, after a few weeks of this almost all of them could easily manage it.

So no, barring medical exceptions, YANBU.