My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to lead this debate because last month I was incensed to read that Surrey Rugby, part of the RFU, was changing the ethos and rules for children’s mini-rugby, age six to 11, meaning that teams need no longer play to win and that they must also be of mixed ability, not the strongest that keeps on winning. My blood pressure shot up rapidly and the scheme provoked wider anger in the game. Ex-England international player and board member at Esher Rugby Club Simon Halliday said:
“We are appalled and have withdrawn from all Surrey rugby competition. In sport there are winners and losers. As long as you don’t demean the loser, it’s straightforward”.
Chris McGovern, the chairman of Real Education, criticised the Surrey rules, saying:
“This is not in the interests of children. It will rob them of motivation and incentive, and does not prepare them for the real world … Children can learn from failure and they have to lose sometimes”.
Steve Grainger, the RFU’s development director, countered:
“If we are not meeting children’s needs and not presenting them with a format that suits them, we are not delivering to our customers”.
What a ghastly word—“customers”. This guidance applies to Surrey’s mini-festivals. Scores will be regularly reviewed and current RFU regulations state that:
“Matches must be brought to an end if … at Under 7s to Under 12s the try difference rises to more than six”.
An accompanying Daily Telegraph editorial headed “Must try less hard” stated that,
“misplaced egalitarianism risks denying non-academic children the valuable opportunity of excelling on the sports field”.
My comment is that youngsters, whether playing rugby or on their Xbox, thrive on competition. A game where no one wins is not much fun.
Sport England must hope that its massive government investment into sport will help youngsters to learn more about life’s battles if they strive to win and learn how to lose. Sport England stated to me:
“We know that many young people enjoy taking part in competitive sport, and that others are more comfortable simply taking part with a focus on personal challenge. We think that competition and realising talent are essential elements of a high quality grassroots sports sector”.
Sport England is investing up to £35.5 million between 2010 and 2015 in the Sainsbury’s School Games, delivered by the Youth Sport Trust. Some 70% of schools in England have signed up for them. There is thus a clear demand for organised, competitive sport. Sport England’s investment philosophy for primary school sports is:
“We want all children to have good physical literacy—able to run, throw, jump, with confidence, through PE at their primary
school; to have a positive experience, and associate PE with fun and enjoyment and also to have exposure to a range of activities including competition”.
To emphasise the Government’s commitment to young children having an enhanced sporting experience, the Prime Minister announced just three weeks ago that the Government will extend primary school sport premium funding up to 2020. It was previously guaranteed until 2016. This premium provides £150 million a year for primary schools to enhance their provision of PE, physical activity and school sport. The funding is fully ring-fenced, with an average primary school receiving around £9,250 annually.
The Youth Sport Trust, an independent charity devoted to changing young people’s lives through sport, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, very much welcomes the Prime Minister’s announcement. It states that it believes that this investment has the potential to transform PE, sport and physical activity provision in our primary schools, and that it is crucial that schools are supported and encouraged to use sport premium funding to secure sustainable improvements to provision. The Youth Sport Trust believes that participation in competitive sport at school is a key part in any child’s sporting journey, building key life skills such as teamwork, determination and leadership. The trust also believes that any focus on competition should allow all young people to participate fully in PE and school sport, including those who are less inclined to take part in competitive activities.
Going forward, if the Government are committed to driving the take-up of competitive sport in schools, it is imperative that measures to promote this are articulated as part of a wider PE and school sport programme. I would be pleased to hear assurances from the Minister that this commitment is at the forefront of government thinking.
The FA has made sensible changes at youth level, most notably that season-long competitions have now been removed in favour of shorter-format trophy events providing several competitions throughout the season, capturing children’s imagination and preventing runaway winners. This still promotes the importance of winning and losing and allows the recognition of winners, but here is a message to Surrey Rugby: no reselection is imposed on youngsters’ teams that have the audacity to keep winning.
The ECB Cricket Foundation’s Chance to Shine schools programme, with government backing, has the overall aim of reintroducing cricket into state schools. It uses cricket as a catalyst for developmental issues like behaviour, attainment, teamwork, life skills and values. The ethos is simple: link cricket clubs to local primary and secondary schools, provide qualified coaches to deliver cricket sessions and matches in schools, train teachers and encourage children to come and play at cricket clubs, thus encouraging competition. Since 2005, more than 2 million children, including 1 million girls, have received coaching through the programme—a great achievement.
Kwik Cricket, another ECB grass-roots initiative, provides children of primary school age with a fun, inclusive and fast-paced introduction to the game of cricket. The main aim is to inspire children to play
cricket through a national competition framework. Each summer, the largest structured primary school initiative in England and Wales gives children aged five to 11 at 10,000 schools the opportunity to play and learn cricket in a competitive but fun environment. There is even an ECB Ashes school challenge, a free interactive primary school resource that enables students to learn about cricket’s most famous series. Perhaps in future England’s school youngsters could beat Australia interactively, unlike in the recent real live men’s Ashes cricket series. The women’s cricket team is of course absolved of this little barb.
The DCMS Taking Part survey 2013 states:
“For 5-10 year olds, the most common way of participating in competitive sport was playing sport in their school in organised competitions”.
It is a well known fact that increasing physical activity in lessons, including competitive elements, from twice a week to daily is reported to have a significant effect on primary school pupils’ academic achievements in maths, reading and writing. The DCMS document Creating a Sporting Habit for Life: A New Youth Sport Strategy made clear that a key goal for the Government was to increase the number of young people participating in school sport, including building a lasting legacy of competitive sport in schools. Competitive sport was also included in the PE component of key stages 1 and 2 of the revised national curriculum in England for September 2013, which sets out the purpose of PE for younger children as:
“A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities”.
My right honourable friend the Minister for Sport, Helen Grant, stated in the other place:
“Competition can be great, but not everyone likes it. We want people to be active and to enjoy sport, which is why changes have been made to the national curriculum to provide a broad range of team and individual activities such as dance that will appeal to those who may be a little less competitive”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/10/13; col. 336.]
However, you try telling contestants in “Strictly Come Dancing” that dance is not a competitive art form, or even that cheerleading teams do not compete to be the best. The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, which is backed by the Government, found in its survey Changing the Game, for Girls that,
“it was not competition per se that girls say they dislike, but rather other people’s negative behaviour in competitive situations, including: cheating … fighting … arguing”.
I am not sure which sport they were thinking of in this perception. Perhaps it was hopscotch or conkers.
If you want to hear what competition in sport can do for the development of youngsters, turning them into rounded adults fit for life and business, hear what Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management, one of the most influential women in the City and member of the Women and Sport Advisory Board— created last September by the right honourable Maria Miller, Minister of State at DCMS—had to say on the subject:
“Watching my sons play rugby, football and cricket has reinforced for me the importance of learning to be part of a team … The importance attached to the boys’ team sports by their schools and peers is also great training for playing in front of a ‘crowd’. The
boys learn to deal with performance nerves, to overcome disappointments, to have the strength of character to carry on when losing—and to enjoy victories”.
Helena Morrissey’s company sponsorship of the Women’s Varsity Boat Race is a leap of faith to make equality a reality in a corner of the sporting world. She said,
“and then our daughters will be inspired, their schools compelled and the curriculum altered—to develop, ultimately, more women prepared to run businesses and the world”.
That is what competition in sport can achieve. Britain’s triumphant gold medal winner in the skeleton bob at the Sochi Winter Olympics, Lizzie Yarnold, commented in a BBC interview:
“You don’t get better unless you push yourself”.
That is what competition should do for us all, young and old. I hope that my noble friend and the Government agree.
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Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab): My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, has secured this debate. She and I both played competitive—very competitive—hockey and cricket, and have the knuckles to prove it. Today I want to explore some of the issues around how far we should push competitive sport and to whom.
This debate is, of course, very timely, given the excitement of the recent Winter Olympics, the enthralling Six Nations rugby and the more disappointing Ashes tour of Australia, although of course the England women’s team won. Sport is around us all the time, and I am pleased to see that MPs and noble Lords are consistent in asking questions of Ministers about the importance of sport for young people.
There are of course concerns and tensions. Sport is only partly at international level and only partly competitive. As has already been mentioned, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, recently talked about “a crisis of inactivity”—not of sport, of inactivity. There have been reports of competitive sports encouraging pupils to cheat because of pressure to win and suggestions that pushy parents and grandparents on the touchline set a bad example for behaviour at sporting events. I have seen that. Sadly, there are examples of the poor behaviour of professional, or at least competing, sportsmen—usually, they are men—which degrade the name of sport.
Let me try to tease out the issue further. When I taught in schools and, indeed, when I was in school all those many years ago, it was clear that many children were not going to succeed in competitive sport. Sport for them did not improve self-belief and self-esteem; quite the contrary. Such pupils hated games, invented excuses not to do them, lied, forged sickness notes from parents, and so on. Sadly, they were often bullied and disparaged for not being able to catch, throw, run or swim. I am sure that it is the same in schools today. We know that many girls simply give up physical activity when they do not have to do it at school. What a pity.
I have always supported the notion of health-related fitness, as well as competitive sport; they are not mutually exclusive. Many schools now offer dance,
movement and exercise which all can enjoy. Classes in yoga, tai chi, Pilates and Zumba—whatever that is—are proliferating in communities. They are not competitive, except perhaps in relation to oneself. Walking is competitive in relation to oneself and the elements. I went for a walk in Sussex recently and fought against the wind and the mud.
If there is enjoyment in being able to perform a physical activity, the activity may well continue, to the benefit not only of the body but of the mind. It is well known that physical activity also improves mental performance. Mr Gove recently praised the academic achievement of pupils in Shanghai schools. I wonder whether he is aware that in Shanghai, pupils also do one hour of physical activity a day.
I turn to cricket for a few final thoughts. Wasim Khan, chief executive of the Cricket Foundation, has spoken of concern that so many youngsters may be struggling “in a pressure cooker” to win at all costs. He has emphasised the need to play fairly and to respect the rules and the opposition. The ECB programme, Chance to Shine, cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, is a brilliant example of taking sport into inner-city schools. It is competitive, but in a fairly light-hearted way.
The noble Baroness’s Question refers to younger children competing in sport. I must say that I would not like younger children to be demoralised by an apparent lack of sporting ability or being in a pressure cooker. Younger children should be, and many are, active creatures. They like being physical. If they can taste the excitement of competition, handled well and positively, that could be a good experience that it can be fun to not win. All I am saying—I think that the noble Baroness will agree—is that qualities of collaboration, teamwork and respect for others are part of sport and that those qualities should not be downplayed in favour of competition, particularly at an early age.
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