Make it Competitive

The Government is keen to promote competitive games, and anxious to see their return to maintained schools.  They hold up the quality of team games in the independent sector as a beacon to be followed, and incline to attach a range of benefits to participation.  The justification for this claim remains remarkably vague, though the absence of science has done nothing to dilute the conviction.

So, what is a competitive school game?  Is it simply one in which both teams are striving to vanquish the other in a zero sum game in which only one can succeed?   Or does a competitive game imply a degree of equality in the ability of the contestants?  Are their circumstances in which both teams can benefit from competition?

The enemy of pre maturation sport is size and speed. Rugby matches are dominated by the large, athletic boys, netball games by the tallest girls under the net: hockey and cricket by the early maturers who can hit it hardest.  School sport is therefore more vulnerable than the adult version to the one sided game.  This is widely feared, and agreed to be unsatisfactory, even to the extent of being condemned as a "waste of time".  Wily teachers, who are so inclined, have strategies to re-balance a one sided contest in the interests of improving the experience for children.  This is precisely because participation in a relatively equal contest is regarded as superior for all players. 

Striving in an environment where triumph is achievable, but not inevitable, is the richest sports experience.  The excitement of competition depends upon uncertainty of outcome: the "contest" assumes a situation which is testing.

All sports have structures and hierarchies to maximise the frequency of close competition. Leagues achieve that, by grouping teams by ability, and the architects of the school programme work long and hard to find the right fixture programme.  At its best, this provides a range of experiences for participants.  Many schools claim to teach the capacity to win with modesty and lose with dignity.  Presumably, this can only be achieved through a range of competition,  which provides the opportunity to experience both.  Learning to deal with disappointment is more successfully achieved where that feeling is most intense - at the end of close fought game.  The teachable moment is at the time of keenest disappointment.

Maybe the evaluation of the success of a programme of inter school sport should reflect this priority? Instead of simply recording wins, draws and losses, maybe there should also be an analysis of the proportion of the games which were "competitive".  So, how can this be measured?

 A simplistic device might be to add the total number of points/goals in the match together, and consider whether the margin of victory is greater than 20% of the total.  If so, the game is categorised as "uncompetitive". The number of matches within this margin might be a reasonable measure of the success of the fixture list.  Possibly the percentage might be varied for different age and ability groups.

Maybe the first legitimate response to the universal post match enquiry, "How did you get on?", might not be the numbers and the identity of the victors. Instead the initial priority might be to evaluate the quality of the contest.  "We had a competitive game."