In this article we will look at the reason why competitive sport is important within Primary school, to set children up for life skills that will be needed later on in their lives.
All children at primary school will participate in Physical education at least once a week. The children will learn different skills in a wide range of Sports, Dance and Gymnastics. These skills will often lead to a sports day or competition.
Children will excel at different genres of Sports, Dance or Gymnastics, so the importance of making sure the teacher understands the individuals chosen specialist area, will be of importance when entering a competitive session.
Competition for every child is important because they need to learn that they won’t always win and if they don’t they can review how they can improve the next time. As stated above when arranging competitions, the teacher/School needs to make sure that every child has a chance to compete in something they are excelling in, of course they need to persist with the sports that they are not so strong in, but they need to feel like they have accomplished something.
Competition provides children with motivation to achieve a goal, demonstrate determination, perseverance to overcome a challenge, understand that hard work and commitment leads to greater chance of success. All of this links to success later on in life, for example going for a job, they have to understand that they don’t get what they want they have to work hard for it.
Through competitive sports children will have to stick to rules otherwise there will be consequences which may lead to them being taken off. Adhering to rules are important throughout their lives.
Children will gain better knowledge of the sport as they play more of it. The need to be taught to review how they played the game and see where they can improve it. Getting the children to work in small groups to discuss how they have each played, allow them to review each other, ask them to give two positives and two improvements. Always allow the children to work on their improvements, all children’s will be different so give them free time for this.
Teaching children to focus on the process of the competition rather than the end result, helps them to deal with the winning or losing aspect. If they focus on the process they will be able to review and assess how the competition went and develop on what they can make better.
