Original practice question
Some people think competitive sport in schools does more harm than good. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
- 1
Position
Disagree that competition itself is the harm. Public rankings and early selection do the harm. Taught games, with a fixture at the end, do more good than a ban.
- 2
Body paragraph 1
- Point
- A game with a score teaches a child to lose a point and stay in the drill, which an exercise without an outcome does not.
- Explanation
- The useful pressure is small and immediate. Pupils who never keep a score can treat effort as optional. A fixture also gives the less academic child a place where practice is visible and respected. Abolishing competition abolishes that place.
- Example
- A lunchtime league where every pupil played the same number of minutes and the score was wiped at the end of the week.
- 3
Body paragraph 2
- Point
- A trial that picks a squad in front of the others, and then ignores the rest of the year, is a harm wearing the name of sport.
- Explanation
- The children cut in September learn that the subject is not for them. They also lose the periods, which are given to the squad. That is more harm than good, and it is a choice about selection, not a fact about football.
- Example
- A year group that watched thirty classmates run a beep test, after which the pitch was reserved for the fifteen who passed.
- 4
Conclusion
Keep the game and the small fixture. Drop the public cull. The harm is the way schools pick, not the existence of a score.