Sports Day in a Heatwave

[DillyDallyingAllDay]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, where we are temperatures are set to be 29/30 and sports day is scheduled 1-3pm. As far as I’m aware it’s entirely outdoors with little to no shade and no visitors are allowed indoors. Would it be unreasonable for the school to postpone?

The school will have a contingency plan. Our one is tomorrow. We're cutting it down to just an hour, with children rotating between an activity and a sit in the shade. Ice lollies afterwards. We always do our sports day in the morning to avoid the real heat of the day.

The school's main concern is the safety of the children. As a parent/spectator you need to make your own risk assessment. If that means you only pop along for 20 minutes or so that's up to you to decide. Just inform your child "I'm sorry I won't be able to stay for it all, but I'm definitely coming to see some of it". Children accept these things (it's a life lesson on compromise).

In my experience, schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't. People complain if you cancel and complain if you go ahead with it. It's the same with heavy rain. You can never please everyone. Given that many parents will have taken time off work to see it, it's important to continue as much as possible, even if it is adapted. These things can't usually be rearranged without creating a lot of disruption and it's such a shame for the children to miss the experience completely. For some it will be the highlight of their year.

Ours is at 9.30 am.

Ours has moved both infant and junior to the morning.

We had ours a few weeks back to avoid this situation. Still very warm, though, so they alternated between shade and sun, and also had shaded breaks.

The morning would make so much more sense!

YANBU

Unless sports day includes a 5k, they’ll be fine. They probably run around more at lunch break than when queuing for beanbag throwing/50m heats. Hats, water, bit of shade when needed.

Ours is tomorrow morning. There’s been lots of rumblings about the school cancelling it. School confirmed it was going ahead this morning but they’d review if a weather warning came out. Cue a weather warning coming out almost immediately and parents emailing the school to suggest they should cancel it 🙄.

The forecast temperatures tomorrow morning are 21 - 24c. The kids are running the 50m and throwing a few bean bags. DD has played whole football tournaments in hotter weather, and indeed will be running around playing football tomorrow lunchtime after sports day.

Sometimes I think the world has gone mad.