Why do we try to fit so much into the Boys' Spring Term?
If school terms had to be arranged in rank order of attractiveness, the Spring Term would be third, by some distance, for most teachers, parents and pupils. It starts in the worst weather of the year, when it is dark by 4.00pm. It is regularly cold and wet, with frequent disruption when the weather crosses the boundary from unpleasant to impossible. “What can we do this afternoon?”, and “Will the game be on?” are the daily chorus.
This unsatisfactory background is the one chosen for the most intricate, and extensive, sports programme that most schools run. This is especially the case for boys. Fewer schools now play two winter terms of the same sport. A second term of rugby has been replaced by another spring term sport, and those schools who used to base their Spring Term programme around boys’ hockey have now found that pressure on artificial pitch time has required them to add a second, grass-based activity. For many this has been Association Football. At the same time, Rugby Sevens has grown exponentially. More competitions, at all age groups - with higher status - than ever before. Most schools have two, and many three, sports in which they are seeking to perform at a high level. And that's before cross country running is added - perversely, at a time of year when running on wet grass is at its least attractive.
This then presents many schools with an uncomfortable dilemma. They could offer a choice to all pupils: allow them all to select a sport to pursue for the term, and compete in it regularly. This has a comfortable logic and appeals to both inclusivity and organisational expedient. But reckons without the importance of winning. And the emotional attachment to the primacy of Hockey.
There are few schools which offer Hockey and Association Football that don't accompany this with an illogical framework aimed at compelling the most athletic pupils to take part in the former, sometimes against their will. Inevitably, the same, able pupils are in the sevens squad and probably the cross country team as well. In the pursuit of high performance, the same boys run from matches to practices on all days of the week to fuel the school’s thirst for high performance and reputation. Midweek matches, evening practices, hockey on Saturday and Sevens on Sunday. Week after week. No one who started with a blank sheet of paper would come up with this system.
Is there an answer? The first, short term one is within the gift of every school. It could simply offer a choice between Hockey, Association Football and Sevens. The culture of different schools would determine which would attract greatest involvement, and sports would need to conduct themselves in an engaging manner to maintain support. The competition programme would be arranged accordingly to provide appropriate opposition. This would have the advantage of being inclusive, offer wide opportunity and be intellectually defensible. The terror would be the possibility of declining competitive standards in some activities. This raises the question of whether the school is there for the benefit of pupils - or the other way round?
The longer term answer would be more radical, and require greater sector collaboration. If Rugby Football and Hockey became the choice in the Autumn Term, and then Association Football and Sevens became a choice in the Spring Term, this would allow wider opportunity, as well as providing conscientious objectors with a meaningful programme apart from Rugby. In co-ed schools, Girls’ Hockey would need to move to the Spring Term, and Netball to the Autumn. Anyone who has watched teenage girls play Netball outdoors in January in the skimpiest of outfits might see some sense in this.
Sports programmes rarely remove components. The result is that new sports, and additional competitions, are constantly being added. The Spring Term has become saturated. Maybe it's time to think more creatively about what schools are trying to achieve here. And then build a more logical programme to deliver it.