TV Features

This weekend I attended the Middlesex County Schools athletics championships at Copthall in Barnet, North London. 

It was the first time I’d been to a school championship at this level since I competed as a young athlete myself 30 years ago.

Like all these events it was hugely enjoyable, watching the future stars of track and field trying to push themselves to higher, stronger and faster achievements.   But at the end of a week in which the headlines have been dominated by a less than well-received 2012 logo, you have to recognise that may be the least of our concerns come the Olympic tests in five years' time.

Amongst the teachers and parents I shared reminiscences with; there was a common set of concerns. 

All these observations revolved around an apparent decrease in the numbers of children taking part in a well-organised sporting event and the feeling that there has been a demise in the value attributed to sporting achievement across the disciplines within the school community.

There were some exceptional performances and amongst those winners there were a couple of athletes this weekend who, if they continue, could make the 2012 London games.  But the event also highlighted some significant problems in sports participation that make you wonder whether we are killing the desire to be a sporting hero amongst younger generations unless, as in football, there is big money involved.

They believe these series of actions hit team sports particularly harshly partly as a result of the level of commitment that non-PE teaching staff were prepared to devote to children beyond the core curriculum.

Then there is the issue of sport within the curriculum itself.  Anyone who remembers sport at school up to the late 1970s will recall the wide spectrum of abilities on the sports fields but that being involved was valued as highly as being the best.

Nevertheless if you were the best, it was a source of considerable praise and pride for the school community.   You can still go to some secondary schools in London and see listed on wooden plaques adorning assembly halls the names of sporting captains next to those who received academic honours.   Sometimes they were the same people but these individuals were always a point of inspiration and pride for the school community.

Some people argued that competitive sport in schools was against the spirit of equal opportunities because it favoured those particularly gifted in one area of achievement and therefore was essentially discriminatory.  

It seems that these arguments which gained ground in the late 1970s have started to fade away but they have left a legacy which has eclipsed the importance of participation in schools competitive sport at whatever level that might be.

At the Middlesex Schools championships the level of participation didn’t compare to when I competed there in the 1970s.   A few teachers think the pendulum is slowly swinging back to better attendance. 

Nevertheless, some events had no heats because there were too few entrants.  Much as I’d like to think we were all exceptionally talented back then, some of the winning performances over the weekend were decidedly weak. 

How can it be that not a single world record remains in track and field from the late 1970s but that quite a few of the winning times and distances over the weekend would not have challenged the performances of those competing in the same competition 30 years ago?  In one of the technical events it’s doubtful whether the winner would have made it to the final in the late 1970s.

Now I don’t want to take anything away from the winners because they clearly deserved their accolades.  Athletics may not be their preferred sport.   And part of the problem may be down to the lack of coaching talent available, but one key reason according to several PE teachers is the lack of depth in the competition. 

They complained that too often the school and parents were not prepared to see this sporting occasion as an opportunity to broaden the horizons of the children.   The more people you can encourage to compete, the more “hidden” champions you are inevitably going to find.  

Another concern expressed by several parents was the lack of recognition their child received from the school for excelling at sport.  One father complained that when their son reached the finals of his event at the National Schools Athletic Championships in 2006 (an extremely high level of sporting achievement by any standard), the school barely acknowledged the school athlete’s prowess.

This brings us to the vexed question of whether a school landscape obsessed with the high peaks of examination performance is helping children to find their true vocation in life.  

In a study by the General Teaching Council, recently submitted to the House of Commons education select committee its reported that an exam culture is destroying the enjoyment of learning.   If children think the only reason schools exist is to get them through their exams we are surely failing them.

Then there is the curse of sports like football.   Personally I enjoyed playing the game at school and have followed it (including paying exorbitant prices for premier league tickets), as an adult.    Everyone acknowledges Premier League football is now big business.  It attracts lots of money, and rewards its best performers more than almost any other sporting talent.

Perhaps because the rewards are so high this focuses too much attention on children’s participation in football at the expense of other team sports.   And whereas schools used to be a counter-balance to that by providing opportunities across the sporting disciplines the decline in school sports means that others pick up where they left off.

If you check the affordable sporting clubs locally available for children during the holidays you’ll find it’s dominated by football.  

The London Organising Committee for 2012 sold itself of the diversity of the city and the opportunity sport offers to talent irrespective of ethnicity.  Participation in sport also encourages children to explore what they have in common with other people as well as to aspire themselves to go higher, stronger and faster.

The available evidence from the Athletics championships is that the diversity of the talent is not in question but that somehow we need to urgently raise the level of participation if we are to avoid becoming a nation of sporting no-hopers.