Sorry but everyone’s not a winner on school sports day and it is disappointment and elation that lights a spark

The end of school summer term was always – for me – all about sports day.

That fun, action-packed event where children are excited to take part and eagerly looking into the crowds to check their parents are watching. So I was disappointed to hear that lots of parents have been missing out on sports days because confusion over Covid-19 rules means they have been banned from some schools.

It seems particularly unfair when we see big crowds at football matches and attractions like the Fan Zone in Glasgow Green where 3,000 people turned out to watch the Euros on the big screen. It makes you wonder why it is deemed unsafe for parents to watch their children take part in school sports – an outdoor event in an educational setting, with physical distancing and appropriate safety measures in place. It seems to fly in the face of the fact that there’s a major football competition going on where thousands of fans have been allowed to congregate.

Why is it that the rules are able to be bent to accommodate football?

It’s just another regulation that doesn’t make sense, particularly when we want children to be enjoying the benefits of active play and socialising again. Schools are used to putting measures in place and parents are surely sensible enough to abide by the rules.

In Jamie and Andy’s early primary school years, sports days were proper sports days. You won little rosettes or mini medals if you came first, second or third. I remember so clearly when that changed, when sports

day stopped being competitive and were turned into some giant obstacle course where everyone got a sticker attheend.

I had that incredible sense of disappointment that kids were being deprived of the challenge of the 50m sprint and the egg’n’spoon or