Sports days (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

) or field days (

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...

) are events staged by many

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

s and

office An office is a space where an Organization, organization's employees perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize objects and Goals, plans, action theory, goals of the organizati ...

s in which people participate in competitive sporting activities, often with the aim of winning

trophies A trophy is a tangible, durable reminder of a specific achievement, and serves as a recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics. In many sports medals (or, in ...

prizes A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

. Though they are often held at the beginning of summer, they are staged in the autumn or spring seasons, especially in countries where the summer is very harsh. Schools stage many sports days in which children participate in the sporting events. It is usually held in elementary schools. In schools which use a house system a feature of the school is the competition between the houses; this is especially brought out during sporting events such as an inter-house sports day. Games that are played on school sports days can be wide and varied. They can include straightforward sprints and longer races for all age groups as well as

egg and spoon race An egg-and-spoon race is a sporting event in which participants must balance an egg or similarly shaped item upon a spoon and race with it to the finishing line. At many primary schools an egg-and-spoon race is staged as part of the annual Sport ...

Three-legged race A three-legged race is a running event involving pairs of participants running with the left leg of one runner strapped to the right leg of another runner. The objective is for the partners to beat the other contestant pairs to the finish line. ...

s are run as well as

sack race The sack race or potato sack race is a competitive game in which participants place both of their legs inside a sack or pillow case that reaches their waist or neck and hop forward from a starting point toward a finish line. The first person to ...

s, wheelbarrow races, and parent and child races. Long jumps and high jumps are also held. Additional games are traditionally run in Ireland, and the UK, such as

horseshoes Horseshoe is a shoe for horses and by analogy is applied to many things with a similar shape. Horseshoes (game), a tossing game played with a horseshoe Horseshoe(s) or Horse Shoe(s) may also refer to: Places * Horseshoe Valley (disambiguation) ...

Controversies

There have been a number of controversies surrounding school sports days in recent years, many of which have been publicised by the media. Some schools have abolished or heavily altered sports days on the grounds that they are too competitive and may damage pupils'

self-esteem Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth or abilities. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie (2007) d ...

, with some commentators calling for the event to be banned due to the

public humiliation Public humiliation or public shaming is a form of punishment whose main feature is dishonoring or disgracing a person, usually an offender or a prisoner, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of judicially sanctioned puni ...

caused to those children who are not gifted athletically. This view has been condemned as " political correctness" by many commentators, notably by journalist

Melanie Phillips Melanie Phillips (born 4 June 1951) is a British journalist, author, and public commentator. She began her career writing for ''The Guardian'' and ''New Statesman''. During the 1990s, she came to identify with ideas more associated with the righ ...

in her 1996 book ''All Must Have Prizes'', a book heavily criticised by reviewers for its alleged prejudiced, fact-less and distorted analyses. In June 2005, '' Country Life'' magazine published a report claiming that school sports days have become excessively competitive due to overbearing and "over-zealous" parents, who place too much pressure on their children to succeed. The report also revealed that many schools have banned "mothers and fathers" races due to fighting and cheating. Since the mid-1990s, a number of schools and education authorities have banned photography and filming with

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of oth ...

s at sports days and other school events. Some authorities cite general privacy issues as justification for the ban. Others have raised concerns about

pedophiles Pedophilia ( alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty a ...

, which in turn has sparked accusations of hysteria and

moral panic A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", us ...

. Many parents have expressed anger at being unable to take photographs or videos as souvenirs of these events, and the ban has been criticised by some as a

paranoid Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy c ...

over-reaction to public concerns about pedophilia and child safety issues.

Global

India

In India, sports days are held for 2–3 days. These include games like

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

throw ball Throwball is a non-contact ball sport played across a net between two teams of nine players on a rectangular court. Throwball is popular in Asia, especially on the Indian subcontinent, and was first played in India as a women's sport in Chenna ...

dodge ball Dodgeball is a team sport in which players on two teams try to throw balls and hit opponents, while avoiding being hit themselves. The objective of each team is to eliminate all members of the opposing team by hitting them with thrown balls, cat ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

etc. These sports days are held between the various houses in a particular school. In India, many traditional games such as Kho-Kho and Kabaddi, March-past are played.

Japan

Sports day, called ''undōkai'' (運動会) in Japanese, is usually held on a Saturday or Sunday in Japanese schools. During weeks preceding the sports day, students practice their events which they would like to show their parents and friends, within their class of physical education, which often includes '' tamaire'', performances by the school band and presentations by various school clubs as well as individual and group competitive events. These practices, and the sports days themselves, normally take place on the schools' fields, which provide little relief from the heat and sun. Some schools have responded by scheduling their sports days during cooler months and by encouraging their students to drink water regularly. Currently, the event occurs most often in the autumn (September/October), or in the spring (May/June). In

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

s in

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

, the event is usually held between the later part of May and the earlier part of June.

Pakistan

Sport is a significant part of

Pakistani culture The Culture of Pakistan ( ur, ) is very unique in terms of its social values revolving around the religion of Islam. The region has formed a distinct cultural unit within the main cultural complex of South Asia, Middle East and Central Asia ...

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

is the most popular sport, while

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

, polo, and

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

are also popular. Many well funded private and government schools hold a Sports Day, when track and field events like running, relay races, high jump, long jump, discus and shot-put are held. These sports are generally played in front of an audience of parents who witness the Sports day events. If the children are divided by house in the school's system, then the various houses also compete against each other for enough points and medals to win that Sports day's events. Traditional sports like

kabaddi Kabaddi is a contact team sport. Played between two teams of seven players, the objective of the game is for a single player on offence, referred to as a "raider", to run into the opposing team's half of the court, touch out as many of their ...

and other well-known games are also played. The

Pakistan Sports Board Pakistan Sports Board ( ur, ) was established under the Ministry of Education in 1962 as a corporate body for the purposes of promoting and developing uniform standards of competition for sports in Pakistan comparable to the standards prevailing ...

was created in 1962 by the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

as a corporate body for the purposes of promoting and developing uniform standards of competition in sports in Pakistan comparable to the standards prevailing internationally, and regulating and controlling sports in Pakistan on a national basis. The

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) is a central government agency responsible for the areas of tourism, culture, art, religion, and sports. It has two vice ministers, three assistant ministers, one commission, and ...

, now has control over the

. The PSB controls all 39 sporting federations. The Pakistan Sports Board is supported by the Pakistan Sports Trust, which assists hard up players and associations so they can continue participating in sports. Over recent years there has been an increase in sporting activity in Pakistan, with Pakistani sportsmen and women participating at many national and international events. Also, more international tournaments now take place in Pakistan. The size of the teams Pakistan sends, and the number of events they participate in, such as the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

Asian Games The Asian Games, also known as Asiad, is a continental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. The Games were regulated by the Asian Games Federation (AGF) from the first Games in New Delhi, India, until t ...

World Games The World Games are an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. They are usually held every four years, one year after a Summer Olympic Games, over the course of 11 d ...

, and

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

has increased since the turn of the century.

Russia

Sports Day in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

is held on the second Saturday in August.

Qatar

Sports day is a national holiday, held every second-Tuesday of February every year. The

Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

is tasked with organizing the large-scale nationwide activities that are held all over Qatar, and include a wide variety of sports such as; football, basketball, tennis, marathons, open walks, as well as regional sports such as camel riding. Other venues of sports day include

Aspire Zone Aspire Zone, also known as Doha Sports City, is a sporting complex located in the Baaya district of Al Rayyan, a suburb of Doha, Qatar. Owned by the Aspire Zone Foundation, it was established as an international sports destination in 2003 and ...

, Katara, The Pearl, among others. Sports day's popularity extends to the point that Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar's Emir is casually seen participating in events.

In offices

Many large organizations have sports days for their employees. One notable example is His Majesty's Civil Service in the UK, which holds a number of departmental sports days.

References

{{Authority control Children's sport Physical education Youth sport February observances August observances