Sports days are an age-old tradition in all schools, and interestingly, they are a tradition that has endured. So why? The simple answer is that they remain fit for purpose, and it could be argued that they are even more important now than they have been. To explore this idea, let’s start with the obvious.
A Sense of Belonging
All of us who have attended the recent GIS sports days will have experienced how much the inter-house competition means to our students; it is palpable. The house system has an important role in how students and staff construct their sense of belonging; they ‘belong’ to their houses, and by association they belong to the school. Belonging is an essential part of schools and can be defined as:
Having activities and shared group experiences hat enhance belonging is becoming more central to our work in school, developing great learning environments and supporting the well-being of our communities. GIS sports days have enhanced this by making them inclusive, adding team elements to their events, and helping students feel part of the whole. In addition to these team events, there was also the GIS samba drumming ‘team’ who were an integral part of the atmosphere on secondary sports day; they were indefatigable!
The Importance of Exercise and Physical Activity
I love the fact we have cycled back to the concept of ‘a healthy body and healthy mind’. The act of being active is a critical part of our work with students, enabling us to support them in enhancing their well-being and fostering a lifelong commitment to physical activity. While a single sports day may not be considered central to this, it does provide all students with the opportunity to compete and serves as a statement of intent by the school. Sports days create a bridge for students to become involved in active co-curricular activities of their choice, fostering the view of exercise as a central part of their habits.
Building Resilience
This brings me to the final point: building resilience, our capacity to bounce back from difficulties. Sports days offer a softer way into competing and failing – part of life for those who choose competitive sports as their way of staying healthy. In so many facets of life, we attempt to avoid letting our children fail (or not succeed). I, along with Dweck, suggest that not only is this failing to recognise a great point of learning, as it is part of life, but without exploring how we cope with failure, we are doing our children a disservice. Sports days offer this opportunity – the more students involved, the more opportunities for failure! My next question is, do we need the medals?
Primary Sports Day
Secondary Sports Day
So…Long Live Sports Days! With a word of warning, like everything else we do, it is not what we do, it is how we do it, the intent at the centre of our work, that is most important. After attending this year’s sports days, GIS has got this balance just about right.