back from sports day for reception age - very upset

[Spatz]

Just been to our first sports day for about 25 years! Shocked by the treatment of small children - I thought the world had moved on. DDs reception class had to do egg and spoon, obstacle and sprint races then some throwing and jumping. The events were all won by the same few biggest children (all boys).

As far as it went that's okay because they had fun in the events, but the prizegiving at the end went on for about 15 mins while each of six races had three certificates and a medal for the winner - some lads had 5 or 6 prizes by the end and most children ended up with nothing. They became sadder and sadder as they realised they wouldn't get a certificate and many ended up in tears. At the end the head of the junior school said they should all go to their class teacher to make sure they got a little 'I'm a good sport' thing to pin on.

How are other sports days run? Is this normal?

mummydear - what exaclty do you object to with the idea that all get recognised for taking part and achieving in their own way? Is it that the "losers" should not be given a reward for taking part because they don?t deserve a clap or a badge for giving it a go or is it that those who came first are being treated unfairly because they are so clearly more able and so deserve more praise and encouragement than those who didn?t run quite as fast??
We are talking about 5 year old here, not teenagers.
Sorry, disagree with your post. Yes, life is often full of harsh realities, even more reason to support and encourage all children, celebrate and recognise all children?s individual achievements. Teaching children the value of effort and the importance of mutual support is a much more practical lesson to learn in the light of that big harsh world out there than pushing the concept of judging each other by our own standards and focing the concept of dividing groups into losers and winners at the grand old age of 5.

bagelbird she is VERY skinny, VERY tanned and about 45.
just to complete your mental picture!

mummydear, I'm with you all the way, even though we are in a minority. Things are far too pc and wooly now.

QPH - bet her tan is just perfectly even too. God, I hate those skinny tanned leggy mums!!!
(mummydear -sorry my post was a little heavy handed. Having a really tough time with DD1 at the mo and was glad to see another thread I had opinions about to divert me . Do disagree with you but no need to get so OTT as I did, sorry. Must learnt to think before I type, would save me having to apologise as much as I do!)

no when I said very skinny very tanned and about 45 you were meant to think of someone a bit stringy, a bit raddled and probably not looking as good in a miniskirt as she did 10 or 15 years ago....!!

aren't I nasty

hmmt he thiong is still disturbing me

Bagelbird - no problem.

we can regconise everyones acheivement but that should surely include the winners .

I think we live in a very PC society where the balance is just perhpas tipping ( in my view) to a society where our children will not learn how to deal with what life is all about. Even in sport children will learn about team effort and mutual support whther they are on winning side or losing side. But because of the society we are becoming alot of these 'team' sports will no doubt be banned 'just in case someone gets hurt'

QPH - nasty? You?! No way!!
Prefer to think of you are witty and brutally honest

DS's school has 4 houses, so it's all team effort.

mummydear
I don?t want to see competitive sports banned either. Just think that it is worth being a little "PC" and inclusive in our praise and encouragement for all levels of achievement when they are really young and gradually build up to the "winner takes all" approach for when they are more emotionally equipped to handle it - junior or secondary school perhaps.

Just thought I'd add my bit here - I'm all for competitive sports days though the one in Spatz's school sounds harsh! In my day (cue violins etc) we had competitive sports at junior school, but no one took part in more than one event from what I remember. I was cr*p at anything involving speed, agility or any other kind of sporting ability, but we all had to do something. The sporty kids tended to get "proper" things like running races, and everyone else did the novelty races. I can still remember the pride I had with a "3rd" badge for the three-legged race (thank you Teddy Harris for being the partner - I wonder if he still calls himself Teddy). I still have the badge!! So yes to competitive sports, but give the slower kids a chance by grouping them to compete together. And a good teacher should encourage pride in the taking part - we can't all be winners but we can all be good sports.

At the primary school we've just moved away from there was a pointless activity thing for all except the top class - a type of obstacle race where the whole school takes part at once in houses and unless your child has particularly unusual hair colour for eg you can't tell who's who. Dire, boring, pointless and badly organised (lots of H and S issues in the course set up by Y6). Followed by races. By this time everyone has lost the will to live. The PTA unanimously raised the issue a couple of years ago but we were told in no uncertain terms it was none of our business as it was a curriculum issue. You'd be amazed how many parents would volunteer to do kids' drinks because it was too dull to watch!

There clearly is a balance to be struck here, but DDs school is way too far in one direction with, I think, very little thought about what they are doing to the kids who don't win and how that affects their attitude to sports in the future.

Thank you for all your posts - we've written to the head and head of junior school to tell them what we think and have used some of your input - hurrah for mumsnet .

I still slept badly, thinking about it all, though

Cappucino - long time getting back here so I guess you won't read this.
I wasn't suggesting you shouldn't celebrate any childs achievement...it's the way all children are forced to compete in this one small area of achievement regardless of their ability, in front of all the school and their parents. This does not happen in other areas of school life. The less able children are not stood in front of everyone and compared to the best readers in the way the rubbish athletes are.

We have competative sports day with tropheys etc. Love it, much beter than the all race and no one wine stuff that we had at the last school

every child in the younger years gets a certificate for competing

mummydear I am still rather at the notion that the school sports day for 4/5 year old is a training ground for future Olympiads.
It isn't a question of - well if a child isn't good at sport, he or she can do something else. bad experiences in sports at school can and do put children and adults off participating in sport for life.

I say we transfer these values to other aras of school life.
at the carol concert, let's get every child to sing a song by themselves in front of the entire school and all the parents and then give out a medal to the best three. otherwise they'll ever learn that some people are better at singing than others.
that'll teach em

ds's reception sports day was low key - all the races were done in house relay teams so there were no individual prizes or a prizegiving at the end. If a team won a race they got a little slip of paper to put in a box for their house and it all went towards the whole infant school Sports Day total. So a bit of competition, but nothing scary. I think once they are 8, then they do individual stuff, but by then kids understand that people are good at different things and not everyone can be sporty. I think individual medals at reception age is a bit unfair, esp on the kids born in August who could be almost a year behind their class mates physically.

As the mothers' race - yeah right, like I'm going to heave my lardy arse across a sports field while the gym bunny mummies sprint on in Linford Christie stylee. I did snigger at the sight of some of them crashing into the barriers at the end when they couldn't stop though. And one of the dads fell over. Arf.

In the infants', the sports day is very much non-competitive. There are a number of activities which each class tackles in turn (means you have to wander round the field to keep up with your child's class!). Some of the activities are done in teams, so there is a little competitive element there, but there are no prizes or anything so no one feels left out and each team is equally balanced with boys and girls. It's very lovely and all the children have a blast and even the most disadvantaged child sporting-ability-wise gets to have a go and sometimes even win if their team is good.

In the juniors, again most of the events are done in teams. The whole school is divided into 4 houses, and in each class every child will be allocated a house (they mix the children up every year so that if one house has a particularly strong membership they don't sweep the board every year). So the competition is between the houses rather than the individual children. Can make it a bit awkward as a parent if you have two children in different houses - who do you support; if one child's house wins, do you whoop and holler thereby upsetting the one whose house didn't win??? There are flat races at the end, with just a few children chosen to compete from each house but they don't get individual prizes, just points to add to their house's score. It works very well.

Freckle - that seems a bit shortsighted of the school to put siblings in different houses. I thought most schools with a house system made sure the younger children were in the same house as the older.

Singersgirl KS1, KS2 - is this a general term used by schools or should I know you?

Soulgirl - KS1 and KS2 are used in most schools.

Phew...relief...was trying to remember everything I had posted on here!!! LOL

Obviously the ceremonies shouldn't go on for 15 minutes - the kids are 4 and 5 fgs.

I can remember really enjoying gym, sports etc. until secondary school when the emphasis was on competition. The girls in the top 10 or so of the year were given a lot of attention and extra coaching while the rest of us were more or less ignored. So the effect of competition was to make us defiantly anti-sport, anti-fitness and to define ourselves as rubbish at that kind of thing so more the fags and intellectual type. Whereas actually, some of us were quite good at sport - just not in the top group, iyswim. But because it wasn't good enough to be rewarded or recognised, we went and had a fag in the loo instead. Lots of us only came back to physical fitness and activity in our twenties (and others not until their thirties, or never in some cases). I really don't see that the teachers contributed to the nation's health and fitness by giving us the impression that if we didn't win, it wasn't worth doing at all.

Spatz - my DS goes to the same school.

When he was in pre-prep he hated sports day, usually ended up in tears, so have to say now I take the cowards way out and let him have the day off instead.

'Life is competitive fgs' Moondog. Yes, but that doesn't mean that's a good thing. Competition, by definition, means you'll have winners and losers. So you have a v. small percentage of people at the top who can feel pleased with themselves and will be encouraged by their winning and motivated to do better. The ones near the top but just missing out on a 'prize' could respond either by trying harder next time or by feeling defeated because they were not quite good enough and the losers (the vast majority) feel rubbish and may well give up. I was put off sport and exercise for a long time because of my experiences as a 'loser' at competitive sport at school. Although I have always been fit and enjoy exercise and I enjoy dance/ aerobics and non-competitive running and can't bear anything combative or involving balls. Hence, like many kids, I became a PE refuser for my last year at secondary school. It makes me angry that when childhood obesity and lack of exercise is such a problem some schools and PE teachers are not encouraging education and enjoyment during PE lessons and sports days instead of the focus on competition which is inevitably going to put off the very kids that most need support to exercise. I'm also wondering what happens to kids with disabilities or special needs during conventional sports days? An egg and spoon race is far from inclusive if you're in a wheelchair or if you are visually impaired.

I also think competition in real life is v far from inherently a good thing. Just look what the league tables have done to our education system!! As with everything else you end up with the winning schools getting better and the losing schools getting worse. Great!! Why can't we all just play nicely together?