As I followed my son around his sports day, it was challenging for me to avoid openly complaining about the lack of sport and competition. Yes, he’s only seven, but I was mystified as to why he was playing games (e.g. passing wet sponges) with the younger Reception children. There were no winners or losers, just participants. He looked underwhelmed for two hours and reminded me of a lively dog on a lead desperate to run.
I’d like to see him participate in traditional sports day races, and whether he wins or loses, I know he would enjoy trying hard in competitive races. Yet sports days and competition have been contentious subjects for years. They may even be a dying breed – a 2017 study showed that 57 per cent of schools held non-competitive sports days.
Obviously, schools shouldn’t create sports days to purposely exclude children or push the competitive stakes so high that the majority of children go home crying because they didn’t win. But there should be a combination of activities and healthy competition.
I spoke to a parent at sports day who feared that a competitive one would result in children who weren’t good at sports being ridiculed. Firstly, I don’t think spectating parents are that cruel. Secondly, not all events have to involve speed. For example, sack or egg and spoon races are competitive because a winner emerges, and not necessarily because they’re the fastest child.
Our National Curriculum suggests that physical education aims to engage children in competitive sports and “inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport” because it “builds character and helps to embed values such as fairness and respect”. Isn’t sports day an obvious opportunity for that?
There’s some sentiment of fairness missing for children who aren’t academic but are good at sport. I’ve heard about schools that hold competitive and non-competitive sports days to keep children and parents happy. But this isn’t a real-life lesson. Children won’t have such freedom in the future. Nor do they enjoy that much at school. They aren’t, for example, able to choose whether they participate in spelling tests. So why doesn’t this element of classroom competition extend to sports day? On the spectrum of “it’s all about winning” and “it’s the taking part that counts”, can’t schools operate sports day somewhere in the middle, so it’s healthy competition without pressure?
It might be more about upsetting the parents than the children. But surely managing competitiveness is part of the tricky tapestry of being a parent? As they grow up, you see your child compete and win or lose. We must be able to communicate that it’s OK to learn from these experiences. When our kids enter the job market, regardless of the career they choose, they will face competition.
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The truth is in life, not everyone will always be a winner. We don’t need to drill that into children the minute they set foot in school, but realism is important. There’s no point stretching the truth all the time to protect their feelings, only for them to enter the “real” world and be struck with a hard dose of reality. Surely it’s about managing expectations?
At my state school, I lived for sports day because although I was average in the classroom, I was one of the better performers in athletics. For one day, I could potentially excel. The thrill of competing felt amazing. It taught me to try hard and accept winning and losing graciously.
Competition can develop essential life skills such as teamwork, resilience, leadership, respect and sportsmanship. Pediatric neurologist Dr Gunn believes that competition teaches children that it may be hard work and commitment that leads to success rather than being the best.
Schools are wrong to banish the competitive element from sports days because every child should have an opportunity to shine, whether it’s academically or physically. Children need to learn how to lose, and they’re not going to understand that if everyone comes first or rankings are eradicated.
Children need to realise they can’t be the best at everything but can work towards being better. After all, that’s life.
Sarah Haselwood is a journalist who is passionate about health and wellness, parenting, workplace and HR topics. She dabbles in creative writing and is trying to write a novel
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