“Are we Having Sports Day this Year?”

Everything seems to be going in the right direction. Children are back in schools full time, masks are to be removed in classrooms and restrictions are being loosened. For most schools, this involves a return to inter-school sport, in some form or other. Some are more risk averse than others, and interpreting issues such as transport differently, but the direction of travel is certainly a positive one.

An issue which is taking on disproportionate importance, however, is that of Sports Days. It is an annual extravaganza of historical significance. It can be a high point of athletic celebration, or a parade of reluctant teenagers and low standards of throwing and jumping.

“Are we having Sports Day?” has become a frequently asked question. It is one to which schools have a wide range of responses. Some, who see it is a symbol of a return to normal, are making every effort to operate one, and to find an accommodation of precautions which will allow pupils to participate and parents to spectate. Others see the multi-year nature of this event, and the possibility of large crowds, as incompatible with the integrity of bubbles. Even amongst schools who have been early adopters of a return to school sport, the risks of Sports Day have been assessed as too great and an early cancellation has been announced. Others have amended the format to have a single year group at a time, on different days. That might achieve the same result in terms of athletic competition, but is unlikely to achieve the same festival atmosphere. The same applies for the behind-closed-door plans which some schools have hatched to exclude parental spectators.

Much depends upon the proposed date. For those schools who schedule this event at the end of term, there is every chance of proceeding as normal. The magical threshold of 21 June would, if all goes to plan, seem to legitimise a mass athletic gathering, for schools who are so inclined. Before that, some levels of restriction are probably inevitable, and for many that denies the purpose of the event. For the more risk averse, even a July date might be too problematic.

Early research suggests that about a third of schools are hoping to hold a large event that closely resembles normal practice. Another third are anticipating a Sports Day of sorts, with restricted formats: the final third have already abandoned the idea.

Like so many factors surrounding the return school sport, the guidance is sufficiently ambivalent to allow schools to make their own interpretation, and proceed in their own way. Some will see a significance in finally restoring a high point of the school sport year, and will feel that both the wait and the inevitably intricate planning are worthwhile; others won’t feel that the risk is justifiable with the long-awaited end of term so tantalisingly close.

There have been times in the last 14 months when the prospect of any mass sports event in school has seemed unimaginably distant. The fact that this question is now being seriously debated is a welcome sign of a return towards conventional expectations.