No sports day at our school because...

[thumbsucker]

I overheard my son's headteacher this morning talking to a parent about the reason they don't have sports day at my son's infant school. Apparently it excludes those who are less able. I say POPPYCOCK and how are we ever going to have any great sports men and women with attitudes like that ffs. thoughts anyone?

How F'ing ridiculous, has she never heard of the paralympics?

We moved DD out of her prestigious private school largely due to sports day. 4/5yr olds being made to race traditional races and then at the end of the day rosettes going to the three biggest boys who, of course, won everything. Almost all the children were crying because they couldn't understand why they weren't getting shiny medals from the Head. Cod (of blessed memory) pointed out that if this was their attitude to sports day it would be their attitutde to everything!

DD now at fab state primary - outstanding across the board. The infants go round 10 events and when all are completed get a sticker. Juniors split into four teams across the ages and all memebers of the team that gets the most points get a medal.

I agree with AngryPixie that the comparison with academic work is not valid, particularly for primary children. Schools do not generally publicly humiliate (in front of rest of school and parents) those who are less able academically.

In this country most kids are put off sport very early and I think badly-handled sports days contribute significantly to this.

Sorry, Thumbsucker - didn't really address your point - of course there should be a sportsday it just needs to be well-thought out. Presumably the school finds appropriate ways to bring out the best in all children for academic work and needs to give the same attention to sports and ensure children are encouraged to do their best in an age-appropriate way.

At primary school in the early years they just did team games, and only competitive races in the later years. I agree it's good for thoses who are good at sports but less clever to shine, and unless you have sporty parents you may not realise you are a good runner until competing against others.

This really is one of my pet hates.

If you win well done.

If not, well that's life isn't it? You'll live. Life gets a lot tougher than that so better get on with it.

Namby pamby can't be arsed heads. I would go postal if ours stopped our competetive sports day.

Dcs' infants school used to have sports days that were great fun. A little competition, a little non-competition, lots of good humour and laughing. Wish they could all be like that.

Don't get the argument about letting the non-academic children shine though: who says just because you are non-academic you are going to be any good at sports. Ime there are plenty of children who are non-academic and hopeless at sports: probably statistically more likely, as the non-academic group will include the slow developers and the dyspraxic.

But with a little tact and lots of good planning, both the competitive and the non-competitive can have fun.

mandl would you go 'postal' if your head introduced compulsory competitive academic activities in front of the whole school and parents or might you be concerned that it would discourage the less successful?

Cory- not at my school. Might have been to do with the fact that the bottom setters got to do extra PE instead of Latin and German though . In any case, they formed the bulk of most of the sports teams.

I think the reaction on this thread that "losing is humiliating" is concerning. Why is it humiliating? Life's a mixed bag- some you win, some you lose, and you have to learn to lose/concede graciously (remembers being hauled off tennis court by mother, put in car and taken home for racquet throwing aged 10- now THAT was humiliating!!). You're only humiliated if you can't take it on the chin.

Spatz, for a fair and balanced society we have to accept that life is competetive. Healthy, fair competition Is part of life. A great opportunity to teach kids these sort of life lessons, in my opinion.

Competitive, clearly.

And... I feel we put an awful lot of effort in teaching our ds how to WIN with grace and humility....it cuts both ways.

There are clearly some schools without a clue running competitive sports days, others do it really well. It's not really about whether they are competitive or not, after reading this thread it's how they're handled by the school AND the parents.

Spatz- your analogy is slightly off because sport, by it's nature, is competitive- that's the whole point of it. You watch the olympics to see who wins. It's a relative thing. No-one gets excited by no score draws in football.

By contrast, academic attainment is about reaching an absolute level.

eg if two people play tennis, only one can win. If two people do a public maths A-level they can both achieve an equal level.

What most of the posters are saying is not that not winning is humiliating. But here you seem to be talking about a situation where one out of two more or less equal competitors loses and the only humiliation is not having won. Being the child who comes plodding up the field 5 minutes after the next race was supposed to start is an altogether different experience. Or the child who always gets shouted at by his mates for ruining their chances.

Professional football is totally different, because noone who is bad at playing is forced to play for Man U. The papers only revile bad players who have actually chosen to take part. If we were all conscripted into the England team and had to bear the wrath of the fans when we lost them the match, it would be different.

I am absolutely not against competitive sports. I think they can be great things.

But I think a good sports day could be managed so there is both a competitive and a non-competitive element, and that children with known difficulties should not be forced to take part in team competitions where being the obvious cause of their team losing is likely to lead to bullying.

That is more like real life. Some people lead adult lives that are full of competition, others do not. Some take part in competitive sports as adults, others do sport for exercise (sadly, there are some that take no excercise, but this I do not think should be catered for by the schools). So a good Sports Day replicating real life could incorporate both elements.

lots of people on this thread are making the academic comparison, which is why I refute it.

Also, attitudes to being competitive academically and how to get the best out of people have moved on since I was at primary school 30 years ago.
It seems to me attitudes to sports still need to catch-up since it is not just about winning and losing and how to handle it. All children need to learn to be involved in physical activity for their future health and well-being. Competition is not the only thing.

I think the risk with being inappropriately competitive at the younger ages means many children are put off sport completely and miss out on lots of enjoyment at a later age when they might even be good at things they are not exposed to when little. Such as tennis! The OP refers to infants, who really cannot play tennis and seldom understand traditional athletics.

It is actually hard to take it on the chin when you are always hearing mutterings of "why do we have to have X in our team, he is always making us lose". This is not about being a bad loser, it's that sinking feeling when, once again, you have let your mates down and they hate you for it.

I don't think it was actually preciousness about not winning that was uppermost in my mind as I slogged along the 1000m track several minutes after everybody else had finished (flat feet) and the functionaries were hopping up and down with impatience.

I have yet to attend a school event where the dunce of the class is set doing equations in front of the assembled school while everybody is tapping their fingers and wondering if it is ever going to end. Can anyone explain why? After all, comptetition is a necessary preparation for real life.

''I have yet to attend a school event where the dunce of the class is set doing equations in front of the assembled school while everybody is tapping their fingers and wondering if it is ever going to end. Can anyone explain why?''

because it's not exciting to watch, cory?

ell, I am willing to concede that the sight of me puffing up the 1000m track 5 minutes late on my flat feet probably did afford a certain amount of entertainment for the less kindly of my classmates, certainly their laughter made me suspect this.

But I am sure it would be possible to devise an equally entertaining quiz situation where children of all different abilities, including SN, would be pitched against each other in public. But I suspect most heads would put their foot down.

Races are exciting. Watching someone in a maths test is not. Unfortunately it does sound like your school probably handled your sports days in the wrong way.

Watching a bunch of 7 yrs old race is far from exciting.

Each to their own, crackfox!

Now I think we actually agree on all this, mango. I am all for Sports Day handled in a sensitive way. And I did say in my first post that I think banning it is a form of laziness.

What I would like to see would be a mixture of competitive, but non-copulsory elements, and other, non-competitive, elements.

I think I would have enjoyed cheering on my more able mates if it hadn't been for that sinking feeling of having to go out and be humiliated in the 1000m race. But I would have been perfectly happy to have enjoyed their successes, while participating myself in something more suited to my abilities.

Quizzes can be fun: no reason why they shouldn't make good viewing. They have them on television, don't see why people would have to be bored in RL. But there would still be good reasons not to pit the child with learning difficulties against the class Einstein obviously. Which is more or less what happens on the oldfashioned sports day.

I reckon it's a load of shit about "Learning to Lose Gracefully" -- more like "Learning to pretend that you don't mind being humiliated".

But I'll concede that it's a greater good to provide a different way for kids to excel during school time.

I see what you mean, cory. I don't think that's the solution though. It's competitive or not, I don't see how realistic is would be to 'stream' the kids. That seems more competitive than ever to me.

Ds isn't 'able' at literacy so I'll suggest his school drops it as it make him feel inadequate . He is also a terrible loser so sports day is a learning curve - a lesson he needs to learn in life. We all can't be good at everything.