What a shame. We need to be having sport's days and we need to be letting our children compete against on another. We need to show them how to be gracious winners and good losers.
Should we ban exams as the less academically able won't do as well?
DD's school has a proper sport's day. It takes place in the Institute of Sport - many of our local schools use this venue now - indoors so no weather problems. DD's sport's day was last week infact.
All children take part and it is competitive, in the sense that there are winners and losers. The childrn sit in their houses and run on behalf of their houses. the 1st and 2nd place in each race or heat gets a sticker and it goes towards the house final scores.
In DD's school there is MASSIVE competition between the houses. however, the individual places are less compeititive. There are other competitions plus house points where points are scored ready for the annual prize giving trophy.
But on the day there are no tears, theire is no sense of humilation or non participation. The winners and non-winners are cheered and clapped as much as one another. It is very much about taking part - and the children revel in this. There are straight forward running races, and then lots of novelty races so the most natural fast don't always win. Infact one of the winners in one of DD's class was won by a very nonm-sporty girl - she admits she doesn't like it, her parents acknowledge it with a laugh, It doesn't matter. They just run and take part and have a good time.