A ban on children’s sport is the real medical and moral disaster
Do you recall the thing that gave you the greatest sense of all being well with the world once more after lockdown restrictions eased in the summer? I do. It was that first Saturday in September when my three boys exploded on to the rugby pitch for the first training session of the season after six months of lacklustre sporting activity. They were filthy, exhausted and overwhelmingly happy. And so were we.
But now comes lockdown 2.0 and with it, the banning of all grassroots sports, no ifs, no buts. Never mind the fact that the RFU has spent the last six months putting stringent measures in place to ensure clubs are Covid-compliant; that the risk of infection outdoors is low, or that, all being under the age of 11, my boys are vanishingly unlikely to either catch or transmit the disease. Forget the fact that obesity rates among British children are soaring, or that 43 per cent of children did less than half an hour of activity a day in lockdown 1.0. From today, the closest my children and millions of others like them will get to a team sport – or any sport, in fact – is a kick-about in the park with one other child. A friendly five-a-side on a Friday? Forget it. Swimming lessons? You must be joking.
But, but, but, says the Government, children can still take part in PE lessons at school. Don’t make me laugh – in most state primaries that’s half an hour of beanbag throwing a week. Sure, they can run about in the playground – but given that schools are now operating a strictly monitored rota policy at playtime, and those in urban areas have barely enough space to swing a cat (the Government has approved the sale of 215 school playing fields in England since 2010), it’s not quite the same.
Once again, the latest measures discriminate heavily against the disadvantaged. If your child is lucky enough to attend a private school, with daily organised sport, its own playing fields and dedicated PE staff, they can continue to play football, rugby, hockey, netball and so on. If they don’t have the sports facilities at school, they can’t. A 2015 report by the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference found that independent school pupils do almost triple the amount of sports compared with children at state schools. The Government’s own 2019 report on the matter found that, despite PE being a compulsory part of the national curriculum, with a target of two hours a week, the time dedicated to physical education has actually decreased since 2010, by some 52,000 hours a week across the country. All schools must provide swimming instruction in Key Stage 1 or 2, says the Government – well, that’s not possible if leisure centres are closed, is it?
There is a fightback under way. A petition to keep grassroots football going through lockdown has already reached 105,000, Swim England sent an open letter with 23,047 signatures to the Prime Minister on Tuesday urging him to reconsider the decision to close swimming pools and leisure centres, and the Telegraph has launched the Keep Kids Active in Lockdown campaign, calling on the Government to rethink its decision to wipe out children’s sport.
On Monday, the Prime Minister said that failure to lock down further would be a “medical and moral disaster”. But what is the outcome for the nation’s children going to be after yet another period of enforced inactivity, if not a medical and a moral disaster?