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RE: The problem of sport
I think what's clear is that a one-size-fits-all approach to school sport doesn't work. The most gifted require high quality coaching to produce competitive success, the least able need inspiration and encouragement to find sports that they enjoy (and perhaps uncover hidden talents in the process), those in between need... something in between.
My secondary school sport experience in the 80s was quite good - we were streamed according to abililty, and I, being accustomed to the top stream for academic subjects, found myself down in the fourth stream for games. This worked well, there was no gulf in class in team games, and there was the opportunity to move up a stream (gain promotion, if you will) by prolonged effort (I never did).
The perennial comment on my school report for football was "reads the game well" - damned by faint praise, I think.
As far as my kids go, all competition has been eliminated in the infants (age 5-7) with the occasional exception of a single running race on sports day. I have no problem with this - at that age, I see no point generating competitiveness between children.
In the juniors (8-11) more competition is introduced - the most able can represent the school competitively, and sports day (athletics) this year included heats in games lessons, with only the fastest qualifying for the races on the day. Luke (9), to neither his or our surprise, didn't qualify for any running finals, but discovered on the day that relay races were held for teams of non-qualifiers, and was delighted with his team's third place. And thanks to the variety of extra-curricular sports on offer, he's found an activity to which he seems (so far) well suited - judo. But these extra-curricular activities have to be paid for of course, and are thus not so accessible to all.
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