How to make sure every child is a winner on school sports days
Thousands of children will be bouncing with excitement about their upcoming school sports day and the opportunities to compete against their friends – but for others the events provoke an enormous sense of dread.
Whether it’s the fear of finishing last or worry about letting team-mates down, the pressure of sports day can prove too much for some children. As a result, tummy aches caused by stress, streams of tears and desperate pleas to stay at home are common on what is supposed to be a fun event.
Dr Liz Durden-Myers, author of the new Routledge Handbook of Physical Literacy, stresses the importance of schools taking steps to ensure that every child is made to feel valued, motivated and engaged on sports days.
Dr Durden-Myers, Senior Lecturer in Physical Education at University of Gloucestershire, argues: “This can be achieved by really considering the purpose of sports days and designing activities to ensure all children end the day feeling a sense of enjoyment and accomplishment.”
She added: “We are facing a global challenge in keeping young people engaged in sustained physical activity”.
“As schools prepare for sports days, we need to ask ourselves: are we measuring success purely by who crosses the finish line first, or by how many children are smiling and taking part?
“Making sports days enjoyable for everyone isn’t just about avoiding a bad experience, it’s about designing meaningful physical activity experiences for all pupils, helping to form the foundation for health and wellbeing that lasts a lifetime.”
Dr Durden-Myers wants schools to develop sports days based on the concept of promoting physical literacy, defined by the International Physical Literacy Association as ‘the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life.’
Dr Durden-Myers said: “For decades, school sports days have inspired either intense joy or absolute terror. If we want children to stay active for life, we must move past the traditional ‘winner-takes-all’ model.
“By designing sports days around the principles of physical literacy and focusing on personal progress, confidence, and variety, we can transform the potentially dreaded sports day into a more inclusive celebration of movement and physical activity.
“Every child deserves to leave the field or sports hall feeling like movement is meaningful and matters to them. A physical literacy informed approach doesn’t eliminate competition; rather, it broadens it to include personal bests, teamwork, and diverse movement experiences.”
As she explains in the Routledge Handbook of Physical Literacy – a comprehensive guide to contemporary and global developments in the field of physical literacy – Dr Durden-Myers wants schools to develop programmes that will support children to enjoy movement and physical activity, and especially on sports days.
“With sports days, schools have a fantastic opportunity to inspire their pupils in developing a positive relationship with movement and physical activity,” said Dr Durden-Myers.
“The new handbook highlights that lifelong engagement in physical activity comes down to building a child’s motivation, confidence, physical competence and knowledge and understanding.
“Traditional sports days often inadvertently exclude and are uninspiring for many of the children who need movement the most. If we shift our focus from strict competition to inclusion, self-improvement, and meaningful play, schools can better nurture a lifelong love for movement for every child.”