I heard on the radio the other day reports of David Cameron boldy announcing that there would be mandatory competitive sport in primary schools for all children.
My stomach immediately tightened up at this statement. In fact, it filled me with a sense of dread.
Should sport be for all? Mandated for all? Or for those who like it?
And COMPETITIVE sport? What did Cameron mean by this?
While discussing sport with my good friend and writer Joel Drucker, the question of competitive sport came up. In his usual incisive and insightful way, Joel asked, 'Is there any other kind?'
And on the one hand, Joel is right. If you take the competition out of sport, whatever it is you are doing stops being sport. Competition is integral to sport.
But that competitve aspect of sport can be coached in numerous different ways, especially to impressionable young children who live at the edge of their emotions with few barriers yet developed to protect how they react to things or demonstrate what they are feeling.
The issue, therefore, then becomes one of how the competitive side of any sport is coached with the goal being to leave the juniors at the end of the activity with as much positive feeling about the experiences they have just been through.
The examples of where this has not been done well are too many to ignore.
The night before, I had been on an internet forum where in equal number, people had been extolling the virtues of sport and also their terrible tales of woe about the type of PE experience that had filled them with terror even as far ahead as the night before the day at school when the PE Lesson would take place.
These negative comments and experiences highlighted the problems if primary school sport is ratchetted up; although in principle, sports can be for everyone, ultimately, the reality is that sport isn't for everyone in that some kids may just not like it, regardless of whether they are any good at it.
I would also add that unless the competitive component of any PE is not handled properly, the risks of re-creating all of the PE horror stories is just re-opened again.
I remember the parent who was always very concerned that her young son wasn't enjoying his tennis lessons enough; certainly not as much, it seemed as the other kids.
When I got chatting to her, she started telling me about him. 'I just want him to be able to enjoy it but he doesn't seem able', she told me. When I asked her what he did like, she exploded with enthusiasm saying, 'He LOVES to read. Nothing he likes better than sitting down and reading'. While I never turned anyone away who wanted to enrol, I suggested that if the like / dislike default position was so strong, why not let he son concentrate on an obvious strength he possessed and one he clearly enjoyed?
It's a difficult one for parents. How do you know what your child likes unless you get them to try it out? Some kids need leading to the well. It's more straight forward when a kid stands watching some sporting activity and the parent can see how interested the child is. Asking the question, 'Would you like to try this', is a natural and obvious one to ask.
All the research and thinking behind the 10,000 hours model (more of this in another post to follow) says that in the early stages of child sport development, the 5 to 11 years, (and there are even different groups within this range, it's not one clump of kids to be treated all the same) it's all about basic athletic skill development and within each sport, the basics of skill development for that sport.
In all ball sports, for example, it's sending and receiving skills that ultimately need to be hard wired, so anything where kids can get a ball going backwards and forwards is hugely valuable. When one dad told me that he was making sure his football mad son did 500 keepie-uppies every night, I suggested to him that he add the simple exercise of hitting the football against a wall for as well - send it, receive it (and also control it).
In these early years where the emphasis is on FUN, FUN, FUN, it's about building the ABC's (agility, balance and co-ordination) where the aim is learning while having fun. If the kids can have so much fun, they don't even realise that they are learning, then this is perfection.
The use of creative games is critical in this process (again, more about this to follow).
But all of this does not mean that competition is absent. Competition can be part of this and should be part of this. It's all a question of how.
I remember an excellent article in the newsletter of the PTR many years ago where it talked about the gradual introduction of competition to the activity where as the kids got gradually older, competition would be gradually increased.
Initially, with the very young ones, competition would be in the form of self focused tasks, where kids are trying to do something and maybe to beat their own score at that task. Certainly 5 and 6 year olds are innately self centred at that age and are not great at tasks in pairs for example (this ability develops a bit later)
Even from an early stage, depending on the activity or mini game being played, teams can be used within the activity. We used team formats in our 10 main tennis drill games which were used to build stroke skills. Placing kids in teams, even in individual sports like tennis, when they are very young, adds a layer of protection to the kids against the potentially ruthless impact of competition.
Any relay races either with or without equipment (balls, bats, racquets etc) are fantastic.
You can still have winners and losers but both need to be dealt with in an appropriate way. There is no going over the top at winning, nor any sarcastic castegation of losers. Well done and hard luck will suffice. Be Kiplingesque; life goes on whether you win or lose. Be excited to win and a bit disappointed to lose. It's almost natural. But react in proportion.
As for how teams are picked, this cannot be left to the old style playground method of the coach selecting 2 captains who then go through the excrutiating process of picking the teams by selecting the kids on the basis of perceived ability where those regarded as no good get left to the end. The coach must organise the teams and ensure that they are as fair as possible.
As the kids move up from 11 into the pre-teen and early teenage years, you up the anti as far as structured and organised competition but as you coach, you STILL focus on task mastery. In success and in defeat, you look at the lessons to be learned from the performance (think how top athletes and sports people usually talk about defeat). There is no over self deprecating apology or criticism of performance (like the lovely lad who lost and burst into tears shaking his head informing everyone, 'I blew it!' He hadn't.).
By the time the kids reach 15/16 you want them to have reached a point where they have been through a managed process of experience as far as competition and how to handle it where they have as good a skill level in their sport as possible, they understand the game and can handle winning and losing.
Through this whole process, it's about focusing on both the result (the winning and losing) and the performance (how the result was achieved). At the youngest and younger ages, the performance IS the result; the learning, discovery and skill development are one and the same. By the time the players are 16, you definately focus more on the goal of the upcoming activity; to win. But you still spend a significant amount of time on the process, the how you are going to go about it.
This model works. I recommend it.
So I'd say to Cameron, be careful about how you use the word competition. I'm in favour of it but as long as those coaching it understand how to do it.
Mandatory competitive sport for primary schools? I'm not so sure. Competitive sport in all secondary school? Better but again, as long as it's coached well. For the youngsters starting off, give them as wide a range of experiences as possible and build their ABC's. Whatever you do, make it FUN, constantly praise people, show those who can't do it how to do it and extract every once of patience you possess for every kid.
Maximum joy and minimum dread; those are the goals of primary school age sport.
My stomach immediately tightened up at this statement. In fact, it filled me with a sense of dread.
Should sport be for all? Mandated for all? Or for those who like it?
And COMPETITIVE sport? What did Cameron mean by this?
While discussing sport with my good friend and writer Joel Drucker, the question of competitive sport came up. In his usual incisive and insightful way, Joel asked, 'Is there any other kind?'
And on the one hand, Joel is right. If you take the competition out of sport, whatever it is you are doing stops being sport. Competition is integral to sport.
But that competitve aspect of sport can be coached in numerous different ways, especially to impressionable young children who live at the edge of their emotions with few barriers yet developed to protect how they react to things or demonstrate what they are feeling.
The issue, therefore, then becomes one of how the competitive side of any sport is coached with the goal being to leave the juniors at the end of the activity with as much positive feeling about the experiences they have just been through.
The examples of where this has not been done well are too many to ignore.
The night before, I had been on an internet forum where in equal number, people had been extolling the virtues of sport and also their terrible tales of woe about the type of PE experience that had filled them with terror even as far ahead as the night before the day at school when the PE Lesson would take place.
These negative comments and experiences highlighted the problems if primary school sport is ratchetted up; although in principle, sports can be for everyone, ultimately, the reality is that sport isn't for everyone in that some kids may just not like it, regardless of whether they are any good at it.
I would also add that unless the competitive component of any PE is not handled properly, the risks of re-creating all of the PE horror stories is just re-opened again.
I remember the parent who was always very concerned that her young son wasn't enjoying his tennis lessons enough; certainly not as much, it seemed as the other kids.
When I got chatting to her, she started telling me about him. 'I just want him to be able to enjoy it but he doesn't seem able', she told me. When I asked her what he did like, she exploded with enthusiasm saying, 'He LOVES to read. Nothing he likes better than sitting down and reading'. While I never turned anyone away who wanted to enrol, I suggested that if the like / dislike default position was so strong, why not let he son concentrate on an obvious strength he possessed and one he clearly enjoyed?
It's a difficult one for parents. How do you know what your child likes unless you get them to try it out? Some kids need leading to the well. It's more straight forward when a kid stands watching some sporting activity and the parent can see how interested the child is. Asking the question, 'Would you like to try this', is a natural and obvious one to ask.
All the research and thinking behind the 10,000 hours model (more of this in another post to follow) says that in the early stages of child sport development, the 5 to 11 years, (and there are even different groups within this range, it's not one clump of kids to be treated all the same) it's all about basic athletic skill development and within each sport, the basics of skill development for that sport.
In all ball sports, for example, it's sending and receiving skills that ultimately need to be hard wired, so anything where kids can get a ball going backwards and forwards is hugely valuable. When one dad told me that he was making sure his football mad son did 500 keepie-uppies every night, I suggested to him that he add the simple exercise of hitting the football against a wall for as well - send it, receive it (and also control it).
In these early years where the emphasis is on FUN, FUN, FUN, it's about building the ABC's (agility, balance and co-ordination) where the aim is learning while having fun. If the kids can have so much fun, they don't even realise that they are learning, then this is perfection.
The use of creative games is critical in this process (again, more about this to follow).
But all of this does not mean that competition is absent. Competition can be part of this and should be part of this. It's all a question of how.
I remember an excellent article in the newsletter of the PTR many years ago where it talked about the gradual introduction of competition to the activity where as the kids got gradually older, competition would be gradually increased.
Initially, with the very young ones, competition would be in the form of self focused tasks, where kids are trying to do something and maybe to beat their own score at that task. Certainly 5 and 6 year olds are innately self centred at that age and are not great at tasks in pairs for example (this ability develops a bit later)
Even from an early stage, depending on the activity or mini game being played, teams can be used within the activity. We used team formats in our 10 main tennis drill games which were used to build stroke skills. Placing kids in teams, even in individual sports like tennis, when they are very young, adds a layer of protection to the kids against the potentially ruthless impact of competition.
Any relay races either with or without equipment (balls, bats, racquets etc) are fantastic.
You can still have winners and losers but both need to be dealt with in an appropriate way. There is no going over the top at winning, nor any sarcastic castegation of losers. Well done and hard luck will suffice. Be Kiplingesque; life goes on whether you win or lose. Be excited to win and a bit disappointed to lose. It's almost natural. But react in proportion.
As for how teams are picked, this cannot be left to the old style playground method of the coach selecting 2 captains who then go through the excrutiating process of picking the teams by selecting the kids on the basis of perceived ability where those regarded as no good get left to the end. The coach must organise the teams and ensure that they are as fair as possible.
As the kids move up from 11 into the pre-teen and early teenage years, you up the anti as far as structured and organised competition but as you coach, you STILL focus on task mastery. In success and in defeat, you look at the lessons to be learned from the performance (think how top athletes and sports people usually talk about defeat). There is no over self deprecating apology or criticism of performance (like the lovely lad who lost and burst into tears shaking his head informing everyone, 'I blew it!' He hadn't.).
By the time the kids reach 15/16 you want them to have reached a point where they have been through a managed process of experience as far as competition and how to handle it where they have as good a skill level in their sport as possible, they understand the game and can handle winning and losing.
Through this whole process, it's about focusing on both the result (the winning and losing) and the performance (how the result was achieved). At the youngest and younger ages, the performance IS the result; the learning, discovery and skill development are one and the same. By the time the players are 16, you definately focus more on the goal of the upcoming activity; to win. But you still spend a significant amount of time on the process, the how you are going to go about it.
This model works. I recommend it.
So I'd say to Cameron, be careful about how you use the word competition. I'm in favour of it but as long as those coaching it understand how to do it.
Mandatory competitive sport for primary schools? I'm not so sure. Competitive sport in all secondary school? Better but again, as long as it's coached well. For the youngsters starting off, give them as wide a range of experiences as possible and build their ABC's. Whatever you do, make it FUN, constantly praise people, show those who can't do it how to do it and extract every once of patience you possess for every kid.
Maximum joy and minimum dread; those are the goals of primary school age sport.
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