Competition is good for some children, but what about the others?

While some children thrive on competition, others would rather sit on the sidelines, so why hail a few champions if it means declaring the rest losers, asks Sue Cowley...

Every few years, you’ll see a story in the press, bemoaning that ‘the competition has been taken out of education’. The newspaper will give the example of a state school that ran a ‘non-competitive sports day’. Angry parents will be quoted. A politician will rail at the horror of sport being done in an uncompetitive manner. He will tell us that it never did him any harm when Jimmy Musgrave beat him in the hurdles at boarding school. Then, to top the story off, politically correct thinking will be blamed for the fact that children are not taught to be good losers any more.

The thing about competition is that it works a treat for some children, and it doesn’t work all that well for others. When I train groups of teachers, I throw in a handful of competitive tasks. Some react favourably, others visibly wince. When we’ve done the competitive activity, we talk about how it felt, and whether it changed their reaction because I called the task a ‘competition’. Yes, it certainly increases motivation for some, and it’s a handy way to lift the pace if your lesson is flagging. But we must also accept that, if the pressure is too great, some students simply opt out of trying.

The lesson that sometimes we win and sometimes we lose is one we must all learn in life: we need to be able to bounce back after a disappointment. But the excessive use of competition creates unwelcome side effects, as our education system amply demonstrates. You can’t have winners unless you have losers too. The dog-eat-dog ethos of school league tables and Ofsted inspections is the perfect example. All is fine for the schools at the top, with their ‘outstanding’ status and top-of-the-table positions. But it’s not much fun for those at the bottom; staff morale, recruitment and retention quickly become issues.

As well as considering how your children react to competition, you also need to think about how their parents will respond. Let’s say you innocently put the children into mixed-ability groups and you randomly name them ‘tortoises, snails, hares and cheetahs’. I guarantee that as soon as the parents hear, they will instantly confer over whose child is a tortoise, and whose child is a hare. Before you know it there will be a queue of Tiger Parents outside your classroom door, demanding that their child ‘move up’ to cheetah group.

Picture this: it’s July, and it’s sports day (the competitive variety). The tension in the air is palpable. The children have run their races and most of them have won something. To be honest, those who have not won anything at all don’t seem all that bothered. It’s a day out of lessons, after all. But now comes the real test of nerve. If you want to see what ‘competitive’ looks like, don’t focus on the kids, keep your eyes on the parents’ races.

Where I live, a lot of the mums are really into running. I admire their determination, but it’s not my cup of tea. My competitive streak is missing, presumed dead. As the kids start calling their mums to join in the race, I chat to a friend and pretend not to hear my child doing the same. There’s no way I would join a race as competitive as this. The mums gather at the starting line, a few clearly in it for the laughs, but there’s a glint in the eye of those gathered at the front. The winning is all. The competition matters.

The starter flag falls, and the mums race off. As I watch, I get the strangest sensation that I can hear the music from Chariots of Fire playing in the background. One pumps her arms hard to gain ground. Another trips and tumbles to the floor. Then, one breaks through with a last minute surge for the line. The race is won. Honour has been satisfied. The dads are up next. My mental jukebox has skipped to Eye of the Tiger. Non-competitive sports day? Not if there are parents in the vicinity.

About the Author

Sue Cowley is an experienced teacher, author and presenter. Her mini guide, The Seven P’s of Brilliant Voice Usage, is available on Amazon.