To let Dd skive off tomorrow because of sports day?

[Cadela]

Honestly, the way the school organises it is horrendous. It’s FOURTEEN different ‘sports’ that you have five minutes at, and the kids have to perform in front of their peers so it’s already stressful. Plus there is no races, no medals, no winning!

Last year Dd was crying the whole way round because she was so worried about looking silly in front of the year 6s. She’s 7.

Usually I am very much of the let’s crack on and show ourselves we can do it! Mindset, but honestly Dd has been crying about this every bedtime and I just don’t want to force her to do it.

what @Janedoe82 said. 100%

@Janedoe82

I don't think that's the flex you're thinking it is.

People like your daughter are the reason that I'm my son is now home educated. It's called bullying. It's not natural human behaviour. It's called being not very nice. I have 4 children and not one of them acts like this because they're nice children.

I really hope your daughter learns some empathy and that poor girl who is ostracised for not being sporty is ok.

I think we agree, maybe i didnt explain myself properly.
We should enjoy others accomplishments.
Havjng to compete with others for ego purposes is silly.
Yes theatre kids should have the same focus. Theres not a whole day rewarding them !

We dont force the whole school on stage to perform whenthey dont want to, why should we with sports

That sounds so similar to what they did at my first primary school. I used to get really bad stitches when I ran, so had to slow down. As soon as I started running again, the stitches started. I ended up just walking. I’d come in last and by this point everyone had buggered off apart from one teacher waiting, who would then say, “come on” in a way that was obviously pissed off. I’d get teased about being slow.
Mum let me skip the last one before I changed schools.

Do you know what the funny thing is? I was probably the least active of my classmates at that age. Hated PE apart from swimming and I could outswim a lot of my classmates at even that age. Always been a distance swimmer. I still hate running now. I go to the gym at least 4 times a week now, sometimes 5. I bet I do more exercise than most of the people I was at school with.

Similarly to you, I probably do more exercise now than a majority of the people in my class at school. Weight lifting and swimming are my main forms of exercise.
I loved swimming even when I was at school but we’d have 1 swimming PE lesson a fortnight and it was only during the winter. I know at some schools they don’t even do that.

Well maths is a bit more important in life than running the egg and spoon race.

With a child who hated sport and loved maths I eventually told the teacher that if one more child mocked my child's lack of sporting ability I had told them to reply in kind in the maths lesson. Amazingly after three years of hell the teacher managed to solve it. Strange that.

I completely agree with your last paragraph. And I think that voluntary participation would at least be a huge improvement on any compulsory ritual athletic events with dozens or hundreds of people watching.

The trouble is that even then, it singles out a particular group of kids for celebration that others don't get, and it takes up half a day or a day of school time (and an awful lot of organisational time and effort) for something with few tangible positive outcomes that couldn't be achieved in a lot of other ways. And while a lot of kids might enjoy aspects of the "sit and cheer on" role, it's basically a doss day chatting to your mates, if you're lucky.

Posters on these threads often say it's some kids' only "time to shine" and that that alone justifies the whole hoopla. But when does the star food tech or phonics or maths kid get to "shine" in front of all their friends, all the other kids, all the teachers, and maybe their parents and their friends' parents? Seems a bit of a thin consolation to say "Yes, Ricky always wins all the races and gets his "time to shine" where everyone has to watch him win stuff, but darling, he's a bit thick — while you'll probably be getting marvellous GCSEs in several years' time, and you'll get to open an envelope with your grades in! So, you see, it's only fair."

Cause that's what they mean, posters who talk about "time to shine". They seem to have this bizarre idea that academic ability and sporting ability are negatively correlated (it's actually the opposite) — and the second bizarre idea that everyone must do sports day so that those poor unfortunate bottom set kids can win some races, as compensation for having to study academic subjects they struggle with and being doomed to poor grades and thus lifelong failure or some shit.

Anyway, returning from that slightly elaborate tangent about the ugly and weird assumptions behind "time to shine"…

Yeah, if you're happy with multiple compulsory-attendance subject-stars celebration days every year, each focusing on a small number of children with a particular enthusiasm or skill at a particular subject while the others look on and make the appropriate responses, then I suppose at least that's fairer (though still tough on the kids who don't excel at any one particular thing). But I don't know how you'd justify the necessary admin and lost learning time, nor how you'd design a full-length public appreciation event for the kids who absolutely slay at close literary analysis, or computer science, or biology, or, I dunno, Latin.

Brilliant ideas there.

I think you did the right thing keeping her off, your day sounds much better.

As a mother of 5 grown children, I can hand on heart tell you that missing sports day does not scar them in anyway, not one parent or teacher will remember in years to come that your child was not there, maybe on the day, day after but they are not going to be sitting at home seething that your child missed it.

However, sending your child in when they are not mentally up to it will scar them, they will remember, they will suffer worrying on the day and you can be guaranteed when they are older that they remember the bad times.

Of course we all have to do stuff we don't like and it's clear you are aware of that, a sports day is something that should not cause stress to a family and a little child .

Sport days I found over the years brought out the worst in parents, the competition was fierce, I use to stand back and watch open mouth listening to the parents bellowing out and getting aggressive like dick bags.

I seen a meme recently where a principal put up " Sports day is coming up, it's just sports day not the fucking Olympics". 🤣

I have been a volunteer at DD’s sports day and yes there were kids who weren’t sporty but everyone was encouraged to try. The taking part was important as well as exercise. Getting out of your comfort zone is a skill and I can’t tell you how many children (not just in sports) whose stock response is “I can’t”.

But for the majority of children it will be a fun day, a break from the classroom, so no getting out of their comfort zone at all.

Sports day I could take or leave but the swimming gala, I loathed with a passion because I hated swimming. I still got entered in 100 and two hundred meters and always came last or second to last. It was one day of the year and I survived every year. The art of not giving a fuck what others think, or what you believe others think about you, is a skill that can’t be taught earlier enough.

You must have been a reasonably good swimmer to have been chosen as, unlike sports day, limited space means only a minority of children can take part. Though I do have vague memories of once being roped in to do the backstroke in the inter-house swimming gala. They were really scraping the barrel, though the school I went to was very small.

Yeah i just dont think it sits right having a day of celebration for sporting prowess , where we force those less talented childen to compete, because 'they should' when others dont get the same for their abilities.

No we shouldnt have a day celebrating each separate achievement, wasted learning time and too much admin. I was just trying to prove a point that theres a reason why we dont do that and the same reasoning should be applied to sports.

I get it in high school where there are events with the talented children, doing smaller events and 'proper events' if you like, such as high jump, but forcing an axious child to do the egg and spoon race is different,or worse forcing them to compete in a running race when they really dont want to and have to cross the line miles after the others with all parents watching.

Surly — exactly.

And what could be worse than being last, by a long way, and people calling out things like "You can do it Sodding!" and "Not far now! Go on! Woooo!" and cheering you on, when all you really want is for the whole world to just vanish, so you can slog unseen to the distant finish line.

The embarrassment of all that attention on you specifically because you're noticeably inept and inferior to everyone else at what you're doing (and probably looking horrendous while you're at it). Getting (faintly disingenuous-feeling) cheers and sympathetic encouragement because you're so outstandingly, conspicuously bad that people apparently feel sorry for you <shudder> and think it'll help if people pretend it matters how fast or slow you finish, or if they act like you're doing so well because of how hard you're trying — they might even praise how brave you are for giving it a go [when normally someone who's that awful at it would have found a way out of it].

These types of threads always have someone talking about how lovely and encouraging their school sports day is, how everyone cheers that one kid who's a whole thirty seconds behind the pack, and how it's all so very supportive, not like the old days of nasty competitive sports days where people weren't always so encouraging and group-minded 🙄

But I can't help wondering how many of those kids actually like it when they're still trailing round after everyone else has finished, but getting cheered like they're a winner. (A very special and very real kind of winner — not the kind that wins, obviously, but the kind who won a battle with themselves. 🤢) It could even feel a bit like mockery.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone jumped on this post and said that the kinds of feelings I'm describing are totally abnormal and weird and cynical, and it's not like that at ALL at their sports days. There, the slow kid always loves it when (after the others have crossed the finish line and there's nothing important happening, of course) all focus switches to them, and how very far behind they are. At their sports days, the kid genuinely feels boosted by the cheering, and never feels embarrassed or gaslit or patronised.

But surely I'm not that special and unique — I can't be the only one who reads these descriptions of some poor bugger being made the centre of attention, huffing and puffing alone towards the finish line, to a chorus of aren't-we-ever-so-kind cheering and encouragement, and just cringes at the idea of it.

All this is making me wonder what the actual point of sports day is, in its current form. I was never able to go to any of my kids' days, as I also teach. Dh managed a couple. My kids were happy to enough to participate, but in high school, they see it as a waste of time. I loved it in primary, but with more competition in high school, I didn't end up doing anything. it was basically a day sitting on the field and buying sweets from the tuck shop.

If schools want to celebrate activity/ summer sports or whatever, why not have the day as a games day instead? Winning teams if you want to give kids the experience of winning and losing, but me more creative. Obstacle course relays. Daft challenges. Rounders games. Giant game of musical statues. Best shape you can make with your body. Problem solving.

It’s a weird hang over from the Roman Empire

I think this might be the most sensible reply 😂

Was at birthday party today with Dd and the other parents said it was absolutely shite. Poor planning and chaos. Glad we missed it!

We’ve got a new head starting in September so I’ll be v glad if they sort it all out and will obviously support Dd in anyway that I can.

I explained exactly this to a PE teacher once. He was insisting all the cheering was so positive and encouraging. I said what if that's how it is meant but the "victim" feels embarrassed and humiliated. He had no answer but walked off looking thoughtful. I did hope some of it stuck.

Perfectly explained Giveme! That was what dd1 couldn’t bear. One of the youngest in the year she was way behind and got that “awww” sympathy clap which as a competitive yet low key non “jazz hands look at me “ type of person was her worst case scenario.

Oh good, I'm not completely weird then.

The other thing is, if everyone's looking at you and they're all noticing how badly you're doing, and drawing attention to it by shouting things at you, but it's nice things that they're shouting, you then have to act grateful and included and supported, no matter how it actually made you feel.

No, of course you're not. We only ever heat about how lovely it is for the slow kids to get supported from other people. The idea that those kids themselves might feel differently does not compute.

I really don’t think it is a parenting fail telling my child they have to do things they find hard/ dislike!! How do you think they will cope as an adult if they are told as children to just opt out! Stupid attitude setting them up to fail. My daughters grammar school takes sports day very seriously- but it is very much focussed on overcoming adversity. And you know what- any of the older children I have encountered are confident and triers.

She wasn’t ostracising the other child for not being sporty! She is crap herself! She was annoyed the other child chose to not try and opted out when the school whole ethos is very much push yourself and do the best that you yourself can!!

She will grow up to be an autonomous human being with free will, who knows she can choose not to do some things that make her miserable.

Oh God. The fucking “sympathy handclaps” and “supportive cheers” that literally draw attention to the slowness of the slowest person.

Just stop it, seriously.

I’m all for resilience and all that, but exercise is too important a thing to risk. We need to everything possible, and I mean everything, to turn exercise into a positive experience for everyone. Including the people who aren’t very coordinated or fast.