Olympic Legacies

[ROSM]

I saw a figure earlier in the week that half of our gold medalists were privately educated, this is dis-proportinate to the split between pupils in private and free education in schools. Facilities matter.

More should be done to engage local sports clubs into schools to identify talent. A P.E teacher may not spot a good tennis player for example as they just want to run a lesson and finish. If a local coach spots talent they can engage the pupil, encourage the talent and they have a familiar face at the club.

I think at beijing it was over half - now in London it's over 66% state school educated winners. For that we can thank the 1997 launch of the lottery sports funding (well done John Major)

 

[Gazwag]

The sand at the beach volleyball is being distributed to a make a number of new courts in the south east, as said on the BBC just after or before there interviewed the two GB girls. They said currently there was one one court, in Brighton

 

[Worthingite]

"This says head of legacy, I'm actually head of sustainability"

Twenty Twelve pretty much sums the situation up lovely!

 

[Questions]

But this HAPPENS already. All these stories about "no winners at sports day" don't really exist outside of Daily Mail-land. School teams play in leagues and I can tell you from experience winning matters and they are made to feel like it does. But we need to engage and not lose the ones who, aged 12, aren't winning, because it doesn't mean that they can't grow up to be sportsmen/women with proper coaching. Making things "more" competitive to me just risks cutting in half the kids that are taking part at a very young age.

At my children's primary school there was no competive sport. I informed the headmistress that the children in my sons school had organised their own races in the playground to see who was the fastest. You still maintained that it was damaging to push children in these areas. She knew nothing of sport or looking at her substantial figure, any physical activity.

 

[Silk]

At my children's primary school there was no competive sport. I informed the headmistress that the children in my sons school had organised their own races in the playground to see who was the fastest. You still maintained that it was damaging to push children in these areas. She knew nothing of sport or looking at her substantial figure, any physical activity.

Sport at primary schools is dismal. Maybe it's because male teachers in primary schools are a rarity. There's barely any sport at my kids school. They've ignored offers from Dads to help with football and don't do any (my son resorted to Netball) . If a competition comes along they ignore the boys who are good at football and pick girls who have never played it. It's an absolute shambles.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

At my children's primary school there was no competive sport. I informed the headmistress that the children in my sons school had organised their own races in the playground to see who was the fastest. You still maintained that it was damaging to push children in these areas. She knew nothing of sport or looking at her substantial figure, any physical activity.

Is that a typo or are you accusing me of something?

Personally, I think its damaging to make sport MORE competitive. I have no idea about your particular primary school but if you tell kids at primary school/early secondary school age that sport isn't their thing, then they're going to give up. And the best athlete at that age does not necessarily make the best as an adult. This doesn't mean you can't have races/football matches etc, I am just cautious of what "more" competitive means.

 

[Questions]

Is that a typo or are you accusing me of something?

Personally, I think its damaging to make sport MORE competitive. I have no idea about your particular primary school but if you tell kids at primary school/early secondary school age that sport isn't their thing, then they're going to give up. And the best athlete at that age does not necessarily make the best as an adult. This doesn't mean you can't have races/football matches etc, I am just cautious of what "more" competitive means.

Sorry, typo alert. It is not just competitive sport as such but a general lack of physical education.
My daughter who is training to be a teacher has just informed me that one of her charges had a large Ginsters pasty in his lunchbox today along with cakes and chocolates galore. He is 7 btw. No amount of sport will make that child healthy and probably turn him off any sport if he is overweight at that early age.She also added that kids of that age who get 2 hours a week on P.E. below key stage 3 spend most of that time looking for their kit.

But back to the point on competitive sport - it is vital that children have the opportunity to compete. At the middle school that my son went to they would make every child race in a 6 competitor race against other children that were of equal ability. No opting out, with the races going from slowest to fastest. You could be 6th slowest in your year but win your heat. A bit of imagination from the teachers helps. You cannot opt out of art or design and technology at early ages so why sports.

 

[Seagull27]

need more universal access to sporting facilities for kids.........a lot of the sports we've won medals in you need to be pretty well off to get into and compete in and i'd imagine a large % of our medalists went to private school (nothing wrong with that, but there needs to be the facilities there for kids whose parents can't afford private education)

not sure how many kids from the poorer areas of our big cities have the ability to try dressage or rowing for example.

i also had an idea the other day and would like to throw it out there for criticism.......now that our universities are starting to charge shit loads to attend, how about an american sports scholarship style programme?

i'm not entirely sure how the system works in the US but it does seem to churn out shit loads of top athletes

As far as I know, the reason the American University system works so well is because a lot of the best facilities and coaching is at the university, whereas that isn't the case so much in this country. While a nice idea, it would mean a hell of a lot more investment into the unis (many of which are pretty cash strapped at the moment) before this could take place.

You mention the higher tuition fees they are charging; this is only to recover the funding that has been taken away from them. They'd need to either charge considerably more, or receive a lot more funding to develop sports much further.