To hate school sports day and not want to go?

[FlyMeToDunoon]

This will be my fifth sports day and I know what it will be like.
I will arrive, slightly stressed and late having prised DDs 2 and 3 away from DVD of Kipper/Baby Bratz/The Lord of The Rings [at a scary bit. 'Who the @*^ put this on?]
Front two rows at the edge of the sports field will be populated by the PTA mafia with folding chairs, coffee, sunshades, cameras and immaculate DCs
It will be blazing sunshine in which case I will have forgotten my sunglasses and will get a headache.
Or it will be drizzling in which case I will have forgotten an umbrella and DDs raincoats.
DD1's class will be running in the last event which is in two hours time.
But I won't know that because nobody tells you these things.
DD's 2 and 3 will spend their time asking for drinks, food, sweets anything really that I haven't got.
DD3 will invade the field at least 3 times.
DD1 will come last and cry and come running across the field to me.
Can I stay at home please?

I hated sports day as a child; I hated it as a teenager; I hated it as a mother; and now I REALLY hate it as a teacher!!!! I stand there with a rictus grin, counting the minutes and, more often than not, miscounting the children's scores! It's an event that never fails to humiliate a couple of children (yes, I WAS one of those!) and I really feel for them. (Still the good news is that I've skilfully managed to avoid it this year - pure joy!!)

Ours is still non-competitive, or whole classes competing against each other so no child gets singled out as being rubbish at sport. I think that might change when DS1 moves up to juniors next year.

my history with school sports days

lower school- lots of running round in circles and throwing bean bags into bins. results not announced until the following day.. for some reason i cannot remember. parents smoking on school field ( yes really). no competitive picnicing- free lollies given out by PTA. dd2 HATING the whole thing and refusing to do any of the activities at all. Husband very embarrassed and felt obliged to make up for his wifes dominant hating pe genes by winning Dads race.

middle school- anxiety caused by impending Sports Day humiliation reaches fever pitch in DD2. I decide from now on I will always let her have the day off on grounds of hayfever until she reaches Upper School....

Upper School- DD1 is happy to report that by staying on just the right side of crapness, no one will ever ask you to participate and you get the spend the afternoon laying on the field in the sun, cheering on the gifted.

Oh thank goodness mine are through primary school sports days!

DD1 would win everything in sight, which at infant school was plain irritating because she used to get a sticker that said "I ran in a race" with no acknowledgement at all. When she got to junior school, I realised that had been preferable to being hated by every other mother on the field becuase my child was picked for the area sports (competitive inter-schools sports event) and theirs wasn't.

DD2, on the other hand, would routinely come last and saunter down the track at the rear, quite unworried until someone in her team would invariably shout at her for letting them down - at which point I had to sit across the other side of the track from her and watch her sob for an hour without being allowed to do anything about it.

Secondary school and suddenly you aren't expected to turn up lest you embarrass them. What a relief!!!

OK, my competitive picnic strategic plan is in place (although it involves me not sleeping tonight as the timeline doesn't start until 7pm tonight when I get home and also includes making a birthday cake) - but now the forecast is for thunder storms . Any top tips from professional competitive picnickers appreciated!

DS is fundamentally rubbish at most things but fortunately relatively unbothered about being rubbish, except for his deep indignation about being made to demonstrate his technique for 3-legged races and thereby (in his view) giving away his competitive advantage .

I packed a selection of posh cheeses and some french bread one year, we enjoyed it.

Perhaps I should add that a distinct (i.e. complete) lack of 24 hour shops means that any top tips will involve you being psychic and making the most of what I have in the house...

I feel that the true Professional Comptitive Sports Day Picknicker would have a Barbour long coat and massive umbrella with the logo of some International Finance company emblazoned on it, an insulated mug containing coffee perhaps with a dash of brandy and a Land Rover in which to sit out the rain whilst eating hmmm BLT sandwiches.

Today I need to produce 35 chocolate fairy cakes with white icing and a smartie on the top for DD1's b.day. She was very specific!

..and doubtless they will have [sigh]

There are 30 chocolate fairy cakes and 80 plain ones in my freezer for awaiting decoration for various fundraisers in the next 10 days

Oh can't you email them to me?

I would but I am 120 miles away from them right now and I don't think I can upload and attach them remotely

I was lousy at games at school but unfortunately good at maths, so instead of sitting on the grass in the sun with all the other non sporty types, I had to sit in the pavillion and add up the scores like the geek I am.

DD is very, very sporty so Sports Day is just another line of activites which I succumb to with gritted teeth, like football practice in the rain, interminible tennis tournaments and, worst of all, cricket matches.

Thank christ have never had to endure all this comptetetive picnic crap. And have never entered the mum's race, dd would have disinherited herself

She is now in senior school and parents are not invited (yay!)

well, predictably, I knocked myself out producing competition-standard picnic, and half way through sports day the heavens open and the whole blooming thing is abandoned, leaving us to go and eat said picnic at my parents' house... typical!