Take you back at all?

[Shady]

Summer's here, junior school sports day yesterday, number 3 son (on the left) got seriously airborne... It's truly weird to watch them growing through all the stuff I used to do, but this brought back the memories big time.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Nice picture, Shady. He looks good at that 8)

Paul

 

[Shady]

I was actually terrified he was going to go flat on his face - but, of course, the last thing an 11 year old wants is a public display of parental concern/fear/affection...

 

[PowerTool]

Are they allowed to have winners ?
My son is 16 now,but at that age,they had "non-competitive" sports day :?: - it was all done in teams,and the teams were all deliberately chosen so that each had stronger and weaker competitors in it (no individual events,so that no single child could lose :? )

Andrew

 

[Shady]

Are they allowed to have winners ?

Are they ever: it's one of the many reasons I've made serious sacrifices to put them all into private education. He's a competitive cross country runner and a rugby winger; his older brother is the county rugby captain for his age group, and plays rugby and cricket for the school, and the eldest plays second row for the school.

Here he is in the 400 meter race:

To give you some idea, the school has headhunted the England under-16 rugby squad coach as the rugby/games master... He's 'raising the game' in all sorts of ways. The eldest has just got a letter from him detailing the 3 day pre-season residential camp the senior squad are going on before the autumn term starts... One of the middle boy's friends is something like number eleven, nationally, in cross country. It's great to see enthusiasm and effort rewarded.

That said, they are also very careful to make all the children feel valued - not just the gladiators... The headmaster's philosophy is that you do whatever you do with 100% application and effort, and accept the results graciously. One of the boys there was severely handicapped as a result of a car crash: he gets the loudest cheer of all each sports day, when he struggles across the line about 2 minutes after all the other runners. I just resent the fact that I have to pay for these sort of educational lessons and attitudes, when I got them for free in a good quality state school 40 years ago, before the state system was destroyed. Still, that's politics, and I won't go there...