So I’m not sure if this is a question or a vent. So I apologise in advanced.
We had our kids Athletics Carnival today and it was the most poorly run event! I can’t believe how disorganised it was. No one knew what they were doing. I have lost quite a lot of faith in the school and the staff to be honest. Is this something you shrug off or complain about? Is this normal and to be expected?
But I think it just really shows that at our particular little catholic school sport isn’t a priority. They have already made it that the swimming carnival is only attended by “competitors” I wonder how much longer until physical activity just doesn’t happen at school.
No lead up training in sport time.
When did School carnivals change to “junior age groups” whereby 8,9 and 10s are all competing against each other to go to the next carnival? But 11s and 12s get to compete in stand alone events. Or is this just an our school thing?
20 Replies
Sounds normal in some respects. Possible it is influenced by covid too. I took time off work to go to the cross country the other week because the kids were in. Tears I wouldn't be there. Total disorganisation lol. But they did the best they could. We can't compare it to our childhood experiences.
I dont understand how in one breath you say its not important then next that its for competitors only and regional selection.
The school is not going to train the child, in PE they teach and practice skills and sportsmanship and health, its not competitive and it's not coaching.
The organisation is a different issue. If applicable please remember the athletics carnivals were cancelled due to covid at the end of term 1 so this is a reschedule and shuffle to fit it in and make it work as best they can.
I didn’t say that.. I said the swimming carnival was for competitors only. Which is a real shame as there maybe kids who don’t do swimming outside of school that are actually naturally talented and they don’t attend as the don’t seem themselves as “competitors”.
Regional selection does absolutely happen. The age groups that were up for regional selection were the only ones that were prioritised. The rest of the kids they didn’t think had a chance got brushed over or completely skipped events after telling the kids they would get to compete.
Schools absolutely used to do athletic carnival event training in the lead up to carnivals. It’s a shame the don’t know. Our school seem to think handball is an appropriate repeated sporting skill.
Our carnival was never planned for term one and not rescheduled. Further it started an hour and forty five minutes late. And one year off planning this even should end in the disaster that our kids had today.
Thats no good then. You can definitely put in feedback or approach the school and ask what happened on their end.
I have never been to an organised athletics carnival, they are all shit shows lol. I used to work in a Primary School and it's the sports teacher/s that organises these events which could explain a few things. They have a few meetings beforehand where they delegate the staff to different events and everyone gets given a confusing timetable about where they are meant to be. Then you have teachers and volunteer parents on stations they know little about and kids that get bored waiting around for their turn not really sure how to do the thing they're doing. It's a heap of fun. I wouldn't be too upset if I were you it's not really something to take seriously. Join Little Athletics if your child has an interest it would be a lot more beneficial than relying on that one carnival a year!
I thought Little As was a shit show.. hehe seems I have been really wrong hehe at least there we can get through 4 events in and hour and a half today in 7 hours our kids got to do 5 events.
Maybe next athletics carnival you can offer to volunteer you help with managing one of the events. Soubds like yhe needed more parent helpers.
P.s kids are nuts at these things. It doesnt make it easy for a smooth running.
I absolutely volunteered today... but they weren’t organised enough to delegate. Even though we committed to volunteering weeks ago.
The kids were idle for hours at a time.. no wonder they went nuts there was no clear direction. No set times to eat. We were ordered to one event only to be turned away and sent to another / get a third of the kids through to be sent off to sprints and then told we might not get time to finish the previous event. But waited around other times for 2 hours with nothing to do.
My kids go to a huge public school.
Our athletics carnival, swimming carnival, cross country etc are ran almost to military precision lol.
Programs are sent home so if we want to come and watch we know exactly where our kid will be at a certain time and what event they'll be doing.
All students are offered the opportunity to participate in competitive events and fun ability inclusive events.
They're then rewarded with a sausage sizzle and an icypole.
The crazy thing is, all our physical events are completely over seen by the PE teacher alone and they run so well because we have year 10-12 students from the local high school come to volunteer.
When I was school hunting years ago, I did notice that all the Catholic schools I went through for a tour did not place a high importance on physical education (amongst other things). Some of those schools only had one PE lesson a fortnight and no carnivals at all!
Organisation is pretty fundamental in a school environment, I probably would email your concerns principal in hopes for improvement next time.
Not the OP but I’m wondering if there is more emphasis on Religion Education than PE? From memory RE took up a fair chunk of the curriculum.
Yes. RE took up a huge portion of the curriculum at the schools I visited. I can remember thinking that they could shave some of that off to accommodate one PE lesson a week at least.
This was how it was for my kids in primary school. It was run over several days, with the 10-12 year olds all on one day as they were able to progress to district carnival if they met the requirements. The older kids were able to nominate themselves if they thought they could meet the requirements to move on to districts, then on the day they competed separately to the rest of their age group so that accurate results could be recorded. The emphasis for everyone was to do your best and have fun. On the middle primary day they would do a mix of expected events as well some novelty events. And the lower primary day was all novelty events except 80m sprints. Programs are sent home for all three days, as well as maps for where each event is on the oval. Teachers and high school students supervise the events, and several teachers will also supervise each age group. Yes, some events would seem disorganised, but that would usually depend on the kids in the group.
Thank you for such a great response! Your so correct in the little time allocated for PE - I wish I had known this going into this school. For such a small school there was no reason why the carnival was so poorly run!
This is not the case at all religious schools. Our school is a private, religious school that excels at organising sports stufff
Wow that is such poor form of the school. I too went to private/catholic schools and for the extra costs of said schools I would expect it to be well up to scratch!
Our ones have always been fantastically ran with NO requirement for parents to volunteer or help out. Everything has ran on time, you only compete against people within your year level (and gender), all runs smoothly. And swim carnival is the same!
2 x PE classes a week for 1 hour each time with lots of preparation for the events.
I would 100% be complaining!
Our athletic carnival is pretty well organised but we only have a small school of 100 children and they join other small schools of less numbers.
The kids are put in groups by age and each group is sent to an event that is set up on a football oval. The groups just rotate around the oval to each event once all the kids in each group has had their turn. Each group is chauffeured by a parent or two. And the events are ran by a teacher.
If a group finished their event before another group, they kids just sit and cheer on the kids still participating.
Obviously there is a lot of sitting around for kids waiting their turn to run their race but they just chat amongst themselves.
There is a break at 10am for fruit snack and lunch at 1:30 before the relays. The kids are all responsible for their drink botttles they carry with them.
The kid's are practising and preparing for the athletics in P.E the weeks prior.
If you have a parent council, perhaps bring it to their attention that the carnival needs to be reevaluated in the way it is organised.
Oh wow I would definitely complain! About the whole lot! We are a small catholic primary school in country QLD. Everyone attends and participated in ALL carnivals. Swimming, athletics and cross country. My eldest is in year 6 and actually asked if she wanted to sit out the CC as they were running 3k!!! (She participated in literally everything else) and she said “uh that’s not really an option mum. Everyone has to have a go even if you walk”. So clearly it was discussed at school. I went. She ran. It was amazing. There’s no excuse for things to have run poorly. Our carnivals are almost exactly the same every damn year (yawn) but wow they run like clockwork! Athletics carnivals are not a new concept. I find it worrying that they didn’t have it together! Definitely write a really well worded email to your principal regarding your dismay and disappointment. Also .... competitors only - wtf!!! That is so disappointing! Our school holds a novelty race for those who really don’t want to even swim a freestyle event. But you know what - they get in and do it and they earn a point for their house!!
I’m assuming as it’s a small school they ran the 8-10 in the same race but would have written down the times for the different age groups. The next level would be run in ages so they would need to distinguish between them.
Schools don’t need to train kids for the carnival but it is definitely something you could do?
Only competitors attending swimming seems like a safe and sensible thing to do. Why attend if they don’t want to race? Might as well do something else. I know a lot of school run an alternate even for those who do not want to compete at school.
You also say it started late 😂 Would you be on time with x amount of kids ? Things happen teachers and schools need to be flexible.
Why do you expect your school to train them for the athletics carnival? I've never known a school to do that... And I work in schools. They do PE, but if you want your children to be trained in athletics then you need to do that yourself.
Our most recent athletics carnival had only a few kids compete for zone as they do "elimination" rounds prior, so if they don't score a certain score they don't trial for zone.
Also, most schools are competing students only for swimming carnivals.
Find a sport school. I would love to find a school that focuses on more than sports.
Where arts were not a filler for sports events. We live in a heavy sporting area.