Sports Day

I recently had the dubious pleasure of attending my seven-year-old son’s school sports day. I say dubious, because for me it brought back horrendous memories of my own disastrous sports day efforts.

              As I reluctantly trudged across the still wet field (the event had been called off three times already due to the rain) pulling my jumper tightly around me I worried about what was to come. By the time the first race was announced I was a nervous wreck and my once beautiful nails were non-existent. However I needn’t have worried as things had definitely changed for the better since my day.

         My Son’s class had been divided into teams based on ability. ‘Prizes for all’ I hear you groan, ‘where is the competitiveness in that?’ Despite this however the races were still competitive but because of the way the class had been divided up each child had a greater chance of success although of course someone still had to loose!

         In my day, (about 25 years ago) we were all lined up together and that was it. I had lost before I even started, as I knew I stood no chance against the best athletes in the school. Then it was all about wining. The be all and end all of every race was about being the best and those who didn’t make the grade were failures. ‘Too right’, I hear you shout. ‘How else are we ever going to get great at sport in this country’? Well I have news for you. It might seem like a great idea for winning to be the only important thing, but it didn’t work! My recollection of watching sport as a child was one English sporting disaster after another.

         So the powers that be decided things must change for the better. ‘Prizes for all’ was the new sporting cry heard around the country (sadly after my time though!!). Now children were rewarded for just taking part. “ It’s the taking part that counts dear. We can’t all be good at everything.”  As I’ve said before, I hated sports day with a vengeance but even I think this was going to far. Of course everyone feels good if they win a prize, but what about those poor children who really were good at sport. What incentive did they now have to do their best? Again the failure of this strategy was obvious as England’s dismal sporting efforts continued. Sure we won some football matches and the odd medal here and there, but there was definitely no marked improvement.

         Now fast forward to this year’s Olympics in Beijing. Suddenly we are winning medals. This year we won more Olympic medals than we have done in over quarter of a century. So what’s changed? Well a lot of money has been poured into new sporting facilities and new trainers, but school sports day has changed too. After all if we want to create successful Athletes in the future we need to start young!

         In my opinion the new ‘team’ ethos is a great improvement.  Those children who are not so good at sports stand a chance of winning and therefore are inspired to do their best, Whilst those who are gifted at sport are encouraged to try harder and do better as they are competing against others who are also gifted. In my mind this way everyone is a winner!
         As for my Son’s sports day, well, sadly he takes after me, but he seemed to enjoy himself even winning a sticker for third place in one race and he definitely wasn’t demoralised by the experience. And me? I faced my fear and was pleasantly surprised by how things had changed. I even entered the mothers’ race! Did I win? Of course not! But I did have fun and for the first time ever I enjoyed Sports day.


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