Sports day and a great school

[fivegomadindorset]

DD is like me, keen but not very athletically gifted. Her school does a great thing of splitting up the years into ability groups so although she was in the bottom ability group she was competing with others who had just as much chance as she did of doing well. They then take the places and give points for every first, second, and third place and by doing this my lovely daughter got the bronze medal for her year group and a huge ego boost.

And yes I am boasting but she is so happy about it.

It's nice for your daughter. maybe not quite so nice for children who are good at athletics (maybe it's the only thing they are good at?), but who lose out in the "all must have prizes" ethos.

Give me a proper, competitive sports day any time (and I say this as someone who never won a medal at sports day - and whose child seems equally unlikely to ever do so).

Bradbourne our school does this and some of my dc are very good at athletics and I still think it's fair.

What happens is that they all get to compete! Having the best against the worst isn't a competition for the good ones at all...

Now they are in juniors it's more the just the best runners get to take part which is a bit of a shame.

Other subjects are ability grouped why not PE?

Children not good at other subjects don't get publicly humiliated or have to endure braying parents when doing something they struggle with (mum of dd who like me found Sports Day terrifying and mortifying).

There were three groups, small class, and the prizes were fairly spread rather than top three in the year got something and the rest don't know why they bothered.

DS's school school do it subtly. The heats are "streamed" if you want to call it that and in each heat the 1,2,3 get house points and a sticker. You only realise they are streamed if you pay attention and have some idea of who the fast runners are.

However a sticker is as much as anybody gets.

What Rockpool said. And well done five's dd.

I like competitive sports day, there is not enough competition in state schools in particular now. My DSs state school is quite good at dealing with it I think, they split them up into the races the children want to do and into year/ability groups. They award 1st/2nd/3rd place stickers but also give every child a sticker for entering, there are no issues and the children who win feel like they actually won. There is a lot of competition in RL so a bit of preparation for that throughout their school life does not hurt.

When I went to school there was none of this messing around with prizes for everyone and we weren't permanently scarred by it. Some people win academic prizes and they aren't given to 'everyone' so why should sports day be any different, especially as it is often different children that win.

"the prizes were fairly spread rather than top three in the year got something"

You see, to me, that's a contradiction in terms. What is fair about children who do well losing out to children who did less well?

Sounds good to me. There were still winners, there still losers/non-winners, there was still competition - but in ability groups, which makes sense.

Just like in all the other subjects.

dd2, who has badly inturning ankles and serious orthotics (and couldn't run at all a year ago), was mortified at coming last - and asked why school didn't have Paralympics just like the Olympics do. She is 5.

That said, she's recovered with lots of discussion and the promise of a silver medal from Mummy for running at all

And, bradbourne, it doesn't sound like the top runners missed out

They still got to win medals, and had the satisfaction of knowing they were competing at the top level.

Well done, 5's dd!

Bah, both my girls' sports days were cancelled this year! I think OP's school sounds sensible - athletic children want to run against those who will really give them a run for their money, and less athletic will get chance to shine as well.

"bradbourne, it doesn't sound like the top runners missed out"

It does to me:
"although she was in the bottom ability group....my lovely daughter got the bronze medal for her year group"

To me, that sums up so much about what is wrong with the UK education system. But I accept this is a probably a minority viewpoint.

It makes sense if there were ability groups and the winners of each ability group got 1st/2nd/3rd, same as being winners of Yr/1/2 races really.

I agree sports day (if it has to happen) should be competitive but it irritates me at the same time.

You wouldn't make every child in the school stand up and compete against each other in, for example, a maths competition, in front of the parents. It would be humiliating for those children who really struggle with maths. However it is fine for non-sporty children to demonstrate to everyone exactly how poor their running etc is.
I was never a sporty child. I didn't mind at primary school but by secondary, trailing around the track miles behind everyone else in the long distance races was awful.
I think sport is a vital part of the curriculum but sports day - well I wouldn't give it a second thought if it disappeared to be replaced with a more rounded celebration of childrens achievements - including sport for those who want to participate.

Used plenty of people have been scarred by sports day(me for one),you should have seen the PE thread not so long ago.Post upon post by people who will never forget Sports Day and horrible uber competitive PE lessons designed to make those without ability feel shit.

Personally I think we should have forced public spelling bees or reading,maths competitions then-in front of braying parents.My dc would wipe the floor of many a child-doesn't exactly make it right though does it.

Op's sports day sounded fab.

Sorry Rockpool I didn't see that thread, I apologise its just I have never met anyone that was bothered really.

I think its the way the school deals with it really, DSs was today and they were fab, they had 5 teachers giving out stickers, 3 of them had the 1/2/3 stickers and the other 2 had the general ones, no big deal was made out of it at all but the 1st/2nd/3rd children knew they had got those places. No one seemed to be worried about coming last at all, the children were fantastic and cheered on the ones who were last - really lovely to see.

Some schools do have maths challenges or academic competitions locally or nationally and only a couple of children get chosen for things like that and often it will be the same children over and over again. I think its part of life but I guess it doesn't always work out that someone is either good at sports or the academic stuff, I didn't really consider that someone could be that affected by it - quite narrow minded of me really.

My DDs school had an interesting way of doing it. All children were in their houses and each house split into 7 mixed age teams.

Children then did 7 events - relay, standing long jump, foam javelin throwing etc where the whole team competed at once and points awarded for the whole teams performance. So the fast kids made a difference to the overall result.

I felt that the children were all busy all afternoon and the poorer performances were not noticeable but the good performances were - big cheers for fast running and good throwing. The houses had chants/cheers going and there was a great deal of competitiveness going on.

BUT although it was very good, those children who shone did not have that publicly recognised like their academic peers would with say a maths prize and I felt a bit sorry for some of them. Though I did personally congratulate a couple that I thought had done very well.

I don't know if there is a 'right' way to recognise and enthuse participation without putting some off. I certainly haven't seen it but I think for this school it worked well but I would have liked to see some individual achievements marked too.

I think five's school sounds like a good compromise between total non-competitive wimpery and dog-eat-dog. Kids who are good at sport should have chances to shine other than at sports day, IMO, they certainly do at DD's school (and are quite often kids getting recognition for other things too, so hardly short of the limelight).

DD's school did it with mixed ability relay teams divided by house. That was only for years 1 and 2 though. It didn't matter that she wasn't fast as some of the team were, it didn't matter that some of team kept dropping the egg in egg and spoon race as others like DD took it slow and steady. Very competitive between houses though

My DDS primary school does this too.

Praying for rain here, on my daughter's behalf . Rain in the next hour or so and they'll cancel it ...

Maybe I should text the school and suggest, that if sports day is rained off, they should just move it in to the hall and have a spelling bee instead? With a mental maths competition to round it off ...