Broadening the Success Criteria of School Sport

Sport in British-type schools emerged, predominantly, in the second half of the 19th century. It was built on a foundation of compulsory team games for all, and a strong conviction that these developed desirable personal qualities. From the earliest days, there was competition between schools in a small number of sports for one team per school. Results reflected on the wider perceived status of participating schools.

For another 100 or so years, the ways of measuring success remained largely unchanged. Although facilities improved, programmes remained based on the primacy of team games and results in inter-school competition were the agreed benchmark of achievement.

The late 20th century saw a radical increase in the number of school teams, as a reflection of attempts to improve inclusivity and provide opportunities for a majority of pupils. The number of sports rose slightly, but the major growth was in the number of teams in the same traditional, outdoor team games. Every Wednesday and Saturday, fleets of buses transported teams around the country to inter-school matches and a rising number of national and regional competitions. It was the high water mark of games participation.

Schools were late adopters of choice in sport. Compulsion to play team games had a long history and did not comfortably surrender this position. It was a painful divorce whose impact is still being felt. The arms race of facility enhancement either side of the Millenium produced some amazing developments – but programmes still prioritised outdoor games. The number of teams and trophies continued to be the hallmark of success.

This landscape is changing. The reluctant acceptance that team games may not engage all children has been slow coming. The adoption of choice and variety – aimed at increasing willing and enthusiastic participation – has finally arrived. This has been accompanied by the raising of the cultural profile of health and physical wellbeing. Most schools have broadened their sport and exercise offer, in the hope of winning wider engagement. This doesn’t mean that competitive outdoor games do not continue to appeal to large numbers of children, although these numbers continue to decline in the teenage years. It just means that there are other opportunities available as well.

Where the culture of enthusiastic participation is strong, these can co-exist comfortably. When choice draws athletic pupils away from school teams, the problem lies with the quality of the sports experience or the culture in the school. Choice is a neutral mechanism, but it presents a challenge to quality control to ensure that all activities are equally robust.

This has caused some confusion in measuring success. Inspecting the contents of the trophy cabinet can no longer tell the whole story. High performance has not suddenly become unimportant. Rather, additional success criteria have been added. Participation levels, variety, fitness standards and positive attitudes have all become important. Measuring these is, however, more complex than the simple metric of wins and losses, goals for and against.

The fact that they are not easily evaluated by conventional methods does not mean that these additional programme ambitions are irrelevant. If school sport and exercise is to adapt itself to the requirements of the next generation, it will have to find a comfortable way to accommodate plural success criteria – with none more important than any other.