Can you have Performance and Participation?
The tension between the pursuit of high performance and the goal of wide sports participation has complicated the landscape of school sport for about twenty years. Prior to that, the sector was comfortable that the legitimate purpose of school sport was to seek success in competition with a small number of able pupils. Provision was entirely meritocratic: the most able got coaching, competition and recognition, the majority could have a much less positive experience. Since then, the rising tide of democracy and inclusivity has created pressure to involve more children in school sport - first by expanding the number of sports teams, and then by widening the range of activities on offer. Prioritising has become difficult. The price has been significant sector confusion.
It is easy to promote and appreciate the value of both performance and participation. Schools claim to adopt the much-misused philosophy of "Sport for All" without being entirely clear what they mean by it. Does it mean that everyone is physically active? Or takes part in the same activity? Or is there a variety? If so, what is the role of choice, and of compulsion? Is it possible to have both performance and participation? Yes. But it is far from simple to achieve.
Neither extreme is satisfactory. Without mechanisms to encourage ambition and support high performance, school programmes can lapse into a youth club mentality of recreational provision. On the other hand, winning at all costs is rarely attractive, and its success is short term and ephemeral, however high profile it might be briefly. The extremes are equally unattractive. To select a small number of pupils, shower them with resources and treat them differently discourages aspiration, builds a fixed mindset and excludes late developers. However, to offer so wide a choice that high standards are impossible to achieve is no less unsatisfactory.
There is a balance. It is possible to pursue both to the point where the disadvantages begin outweigh the advantages, and no further. For example, widening the choice of activity beyond a limited diet of competitive games may stimulate wider sports participation, but this has to stop short of the point where nothing is done well and the ambitious pupils have no outlet for their aspiration. Focusing resources on a limited number of pupils and activities will increase the chance of filling the trophy cabinet, but runs the risk of disengaging the majority, who readily adopt the label of being "not sporty".
Schools have a wide range of ability, body size and inclination. They have a duty to provide a high standard of experience for all pupils, though high quality will look very different in some areas of the programme from others. To favour one at the expense of the other can never be justifiable. But to test the boundaries of compromise to get as close as possible to the best of both reflects the real skill of the programme architect. It is no simple undertaking, which is why it is rarely satisfactorily achieved.
Resources are always limited. The way in which these are allocated defines the real priorities. If the performance programme sends its gladiatorial teams around the country to high profile competitions, then equal investment is required in the variety programme and in promoting a culture of health and fitness. Sport for the Most Able and a consolation prize of low quality recreation for the rest does not equate to a programme of Sport for All. If the Badminton is evicted when it rains to allow the cricketers to use indoor nets, then the message of inequality is strikingly clear.
The complex landscape of the school sport programme demands clarity of thinking. A school must articulate its ambitions without confusion. These objectives must be reflected at an operational level, and supported by suitable distribution of resources. What a school chooses to celebrate as success in sport is a reflection of its culture, and should be carefully selected to match its aims. The presentations, the pictures, the tweets and the announcements in assembly all contribute subliminally to building the picture of what is organisationally valued.
Talk is cheap. Performance and participation are not mutually exclusive. But rarely achieved simultaneously. It's a choice.