Should you “Give Up” Time for School Sport ?

Teachers are often thanked (maybe not often enough), for their role in encouraging school sport, and undertaking the supervisory roles that make it possible.  Such thanks often acknowledge the “giving up” of time to enable such games to occur.  As a sign of the times, pupils are now sometimes thanked for “giving up” their time to play for the school.  The decline of Cricket is often linked with perceived pupil reluctance to “give up” time to the game.

The language is interesting.  All of this implies a sacrifice.  That something more attractive has been denied in order to enable the school sport occasion to take place.  It suggests that, given a choice, the sport wouldn't happen.  More attractive choices would be made.

If this is the foundation of sport, then its days are numbered.  Eventually the appeal of the contrasting activity will grow to the point that it cannot be resisted.  While school sport is a reluctant obligation of either teachers or pupils - or, at worst, both - its future is parlous.

The foundation of sport is that it is the opposite of obligation.  It is fun, frivolous and fulfilling.  It is shared with mates and makes memories.  When it loses its capacity to thrill, and inspire love, then it will shrivel and die.  This has already occurred in some areas of education.  Teachers who don't love their involvement in school games are less likely to inspire that quality in their pupils: where their commitment is uncertain, it is unsurprising that their teams might come to share that. 

Generations of children learned to love sport through the messianic fervour of teachers who shared their enthusiasms, and modelled passion and commitment.  Many adults fondly remember the long ago teachers who kindled a lifetime of involvement that positively impacted on the quality of their life.

The average age of the teachers who voluntarily coach teams is rising in many schools. And their number declining.  The generation who generously shared their love of sport is being replaced, in part, by conscripted staff for whom it is a sacrifice.  Often a temporary one.  When sport plays a smaller part in the culture of a school, its capacity to engage is reduced.  It is further undermined in those schools where some teachers suggest that it is time wasted that could be spent in front of books. It becomes marginalised, and its participants decline in number and commitment.

Schools have rightly become reluctant to force pupils and staff to be involved in games.  But such compulsion must be replaced by intrinsic motivation if school sport is to survive.  After all, that's how club sport works, at youth and adult levels.  No one compels it: coaches and players take part because they love it. Building a culture where it is cool to take part, and fun to do so, is the challenge facing school sport.  Learning the love of the game is a lengthy, though lasting, process. 

If it's a sacrifice, eventually the capacity for self denial will weaken.  A lifetime of activity and social engagement depends on learning to love sport.  For most people, that happens at school. Teaching that should be the highest priority for schools, and modelling it the greatest thing that teachers can do.