How does your primary school select the football or netball team?

[Rafaella]

At my ds's school the teams - organised and run by parents, not teachers - are supposedly picked on merit so children from year 5 or even 4 may get chosen even though there are year 6s who would like to play and have been to every training session but aren't considered to be as good. This causes endless upset among the children who are left out, particularly if their friends make the teams. The coaches say they want the 'best' team, but is this the way all schools do it? I feel that at primary school it would be great to give everyone who goes regularly to practice a chance to play in a match for their school but most parents - well the ones with the sporty kids who get picked for everything - don't agree.

In our school my particular bugbear is the drama things. DD has gone all through school (she's yr 6 now) with one girl who is very confident and possesses a very small modicum of talent in the singing area. Which presumably is why she has been Mary in the Christmas play no less than 3 times . I sometimes feel that we've all been invited along to the (insert child's name here) Appreciation Society instead of a primary school nativity play! Sports things aren't so noticably biased, but I definitely share your view that at this stage it's not about achieving excellence, but letting everybody have their chance to take part and try things out. Haven't managed to pluck up the courage to tackle this at school yet though...

Are you thinking of saying something?

Our school fields loads of teams so everyone gets a go and you can live in hope that one day you'll get promoted to the next best team.

Our were picked from the practices, only Yr5&6, separate teams, unless the coach had child in Yr 4, 5 or 6, when they would get a place regardless!

Our primary school do pick "the best" for their soccer team - usually yr6s. They have great success ... ditto for swimming and some other sports. (All run by school staff.)

However, there are opportunities for other enthusiastic children to compete if they want to. There are certainly "second teams" for football, when others can take part if they really want to. (By that age the really rubbish ones - like my ds1 - will have completely lost interest.)

I can't imagine ds1 ever playing in a sports match for the school, but that doesn't bother me. His talents lie elsewhere. Of course he would love to stand up in assembly and receive the cup for the town football competition, or whatever, but it's just not going to happen. And IMO it's better for those lads who have got some sporting potential to have that experience of success, rather than the 'competing experience' be shared round all sorts of no-hopers like my ds1.

I'm afraid I'm with those picking. The whole point of playing a game competitively is that you want to win and therefore pick your best players.

Learning that you aren't the best at everything is an important lesson imo. Every child is good at something and this is what you have to reinforce when a child realises they are not so good at something else.

No experience, but I agree with you. All the children should have a chance to play. It should be fun and not too competitive IMO.

I think that writing off kids too early as 'not good enough' can be really off putting. What if some kids aren't good at most things and haven't found out yet what they are particularly good at. The message is 'so you're not even good at football'. No I think if your child turns up for training each week in the cold then they should at least be given the opportunity to play in the match and try their best. Kids today really know what 'not good enough' means and that is not good enough. In my opinion.

Unfortunately the school is small so there is no chance of a B team - and the coach isn't interested because his son and friends are of course in the A team. My ds isn't a no hoper, just marginally not as good as some of the others - I don't think giving him or some of the others like him a go for half a match is going to make any difference to the outcome of a game. He doesn't want me to say anything though because he thinks it will stop him ever getting picked. Also the dad who runs the team gives up his own time unpaid to do it and may just argue that if I don't like the way it's run my son doesn't have to go. the school seems perfectly happy with the way it's run and are just grateful that someone will do it so they don't have to

When I ran netball and rounders teams I picked the best team for league matches and organised additional 'friendlies' that all comers got to play in. I think it is true that children need to understand that sometimes they won't be picked out as 'the best' at something, but how will they ever improve if there isn't something to play for. Friendly matches against other schools gave the kids the urge to win and so to them it was imaterial whether it was a real match or not.

No, in DS school, the school team is picked by teachers who choose the best players - which is fair enough as the object is to win games in competition with other schools, not to make everyone feel good.

The Sat. morning team is run by parents, and is not competitive, they only ever play amongst themselves, so everyone gets a chance at playing. Don't think this automatically makes the non-sporty ones feel better as they are always last to be chosen by team captains, often under sufferance..................