The competitive nature of sports day has become a contentious issue in primary schools. Is the day about competitiveness or participation? Should there be medals for all or just the winners?

THERE WAS no way I was going to be one of the finish-line judges for the annual sports day at my children’s national school. Help out, sure. But put myself in the firing line? No thanks.

So instead of being responsible for helping to decide who had won the gold, silver and bronze medals in tight finishes, I got the much cushier job of handing out the medals after each race – once the verdicts had been delivered by less cowardly members of the parents’ association.

The only moment of discomfort came when a parent asked for her child’s “participation” medal. I had to explain that there wasn’t one – we were not doing “medals for all”.

The competitive nature of sports days is a contentious issue in primary schools. There has been a marked swing away from pure competition to a greater focus on participation. At a time of sedentary lifestyles and rising obesity rates among children, it has never been more important to involve all children in exercise.

But the merit of every child going away with identical medals, irrespective of performance, is debatable. Schools don’t shy away from singling out academic success inside the classroom, so why not mark outstanding achievements on the sports field? And anyway, isn’t coping with the disappointment of losing out to others a lesson for life which children have to learn?

Up to the age of eight, it should be all about participation, and medals for everybody is great, says Aled Hughes who runs Co-Dex Kids, a physical education programme for children. For older children, it should be more competitive, he argues.

What about the boy in the corner of the classroom who never does well in spelling tests, he asks. Yet when it comes to sports day, he is first over the line and wins a medal – but then so does the kid who came last and who enjoyed his moment of glory for being top of the class in spelling.

“The person who is good at running should be acknowledged,” he stresses. However, Hughes is critical of the way most school sports days focus on only one component of fitness, namely speed.

“What about strength, flexibility, endurance, power?” he asks. They are tested throughout the year in the physical education curriculum but not acknowledged on sports day.

Parents have been contacting the Irish Primary PE Association over the past month looking for ideas on how to make schools’ sports days less competitive, reports its chairwoman Caitríona Cosgrave.

You can’t rule out competition and medals, she says, but where sports days are held during the school day, the philosophy should be aligned with the PE curriculum, which stipulates a balance between competitive and non-competitive activities and ones that are developmentally appropriate.

“I think it is nice for every child to go home with something, not necessarily a medal,” she says. “You might give extra recognition to people who were particularly good on the day.”

We need to get away from the type of sports days she experienced at primary school, “when it was the stress of trying to win something and taking part wasn’t acknowledged. It is about finding the middle ground”.

Many schools nowadays give a certificate to all participants and medals to winners of races. For children, this “celebrates the taking part but acknowledges that there are people better than you in PE and that’s the bottom line”, she comments.

Children tend to be naturally competitive and are not fooled by the “medals for all” approach. So is it political correctness, which makes the parents feel better?

Novelist Denise Deegan’s children refer to universal handouts as “empty medals”. She says her daughter Amy (13) asked: “Who is going to feel good about getting a ‘charity’ medal?”

Maybe they are a good idea for junior infants, to get them into the fun of the race, says Deegan. “But as they get older, it is kind of condescending. Kids are very competitive themselves. Even if you give them all medals, they will still know who came first and who came second and who came third.”

When her son Alex, who is now aged 11, was younger, he would win all around him. But children grow at different rates and he has had to cope with disappointment too.

“It was a great way for him to learn for himself,” she points out. “You can’t sit your child down and say, ‘Life is full of disappointment, honey’; they are not even going to listen. They have to learn themselves, bit by bit.”

The whole point of a race is to see who is fastest, she stresses. “There are kids who don’t shine in the classroom who do shine on the track. You can’t take that away from them. Those children deserve a prize.”

However, she believes organisers of sports days should include fun events for children who are not going to be winning medals. At Amy’s school, Loreto Dalkey in Co Dublin, the day is now called “Spirit Day” rather than “Sports Day”, and incorporates fun and team activities as well as the traditional races.

Deegan agrees that the pressure not to confine prizes to the top finishers often comes from parents who do not want their “also ran” children being upset. “They are just trying to cushion them from negative emotions. That is a very stupid thing to do,” she comments.

In fact, she adds, medals for all “is doing a disservice to parents as well as children. Kids have to learn themselves. If we can’t give them situations where they can learn, it is going to be harder in the long run”.

Louise Mullen, a mother of three children who lives in Inchicore in Dublin, says it is a good idea to encourage children’s natural competitiveness, up to a limit, and she sees it as a life lesson.

“There is no harm in giving medals to those who are the fastest or can jump the longest or who are the best at the egg and spoon race. I think children naturally respond to that.”

Her children, ranging in age from five to 15, take it all in their stride, and “they are not necessarily the ones winning by any means. Children can be quite different in this respect.” She agrees parents can be quite different too in their reactions – “and maybe the two are not unrelated”.

Children know when everybody is given a medal, she adds. “They come home with medals and you say, ‘Great, well done’, and they will say, ‘Mum, everybody got one’.”

Schools do struggle with the question of whether they should be giving medals for all at sports days, says the chief executive of the National Parents Council Primary, Áine Lynch. She believes that whatever approach is taken, the decision should be made between the school and the parents.

She also recommends consulting the children. “Often decisions are made in the best interests of children and the last people who are asked are the children in the school,” she comments.

She does not believe there is a right or wrong answer to the question of medals. “I just think the decisions should be made jointly and then those decisions can go a lot smoother.

“Does a medal become meaningless if everybody has one? Children would say that. But in some situations children will ask that all get a medal for something.”

When the pupils go home, it is the parents who are dealing with the outcome of these sports days, she adds. “It is very hard for parents to support or to respond to that if they are not really clear about what went on. Even if a parent is there, it sometimes may not be clear what is going on!”

Sports day at St Raphaela’s National School in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, is a joint venture between the school and the parents’ association (PA), which is run during the school day.

They have medals for all the junior and senior infants, but in the older classes they are awarded only to those who come first, second or third. All the children get a drink and sweets or crisps.

“One year they decided they were not going to give medals to senior infants,” says the current PA chairwoman, Emer Halpenny. “But they were just too young to understand that and it was changed back.”

There are novelty games and races, as well as serious races and relays, she explains. The children also get time on a bouncy castle.

It rarely gets very competitive, but it might be different with boys, suggests Halpenny, whose two daughters, aged eight and 10, attend the school, which has a few boys only in the younger classes.

“Every year you expect the same children to win the race,” she says. “There are children who are naturally fast and everybody knows it, and they get used to it.”

She adds: “They are all told the usual thing, that it is not about winning, it is about taking part. When they get a bit older they go, ‘Yeah, yeah, we know. Still it would be nice to win!’.”

MEDALS FOR ALL: 'IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUN DAY AND CHILDREN ARE CELEBRATED FOR WHATEVER IT IS THEY HAVE MANAGED TO ACHIEVE'

ALL 260 pupils at Scoil Náisiúnta Barra Naofa Cailíní in Cork city went home with a gold medal after their recent sports day.

"The policy here is medals for all," explains the principal, Margaret McCarthy. She is only in her first year with the school, but it was the same in her previous school where she was deputy principal and where the parents' association was very involved in the organising of sports day.

"There is the debate, why does everybody get one and that devalues the medal," she acknowledges. "At the same time, it is supposed to be a fun day and children are celebrated for whatever it is they have managed to achieve."

For children with developmental co-ordination delay, it is a great achievement to run 50 metres, she points out.

"I am well aware of the type of parent who wants their child's achievement marked by getting a medal because they came first, second or third. There certainly is a place for that in competitive sport and in sporting organisations such as the athletics clubs.

"Our sports day is really a celebration of physical activity," she explains. As well as running races there are novelty events such as three-legged, egg and spoon and team obstacle races.

"Who is placed where in each race is not recorded. Junior and senior infants are usually unaware of what order they cross the line but from first class up they have a fair idea of who is the fastest.

"The kids know who came first second or third, and that is celebrated I suppose after each race," McCarthy says. At the end of the day, "they all get a medal and have their own respect, or not, for it. Children are no fools".

There are plenty of other opportunities for pupils to engage in competitive sport: basketball, camogie and GAA football. The best athletes can also compete in the inter-schools competitions, which are held in Cork.

"We fully support competitive sports," she adds, "but we are generalists not specialists."