This is a collaboration between Alina, Caitlyne, Chloe and Linda with regards to the lack of sports facilities in schools, and what we feel should be the way forward to encourage and influence children, from a young age, to engage in sport.
Growing up with access to all type of sports, swimming, athletics, gymnastics, ice skating and team sports it came as a shock to see the lack of facilities in Irish Primary and Senior schools. Swimming is seen as a 8 week course in some schools whilst others don’t offer it at all. Whilst some schools are too small to have pools, or even be able to create any type of team, some children have never held a javelin, or even a tennis racket. There is no real ‘plan’ for children and sports in schools, its up to the schools to provide facilities, and unfortunately there is never enough money in the budget for this. With the ‘compo culture’ well and truly ingrained some schools have now started to ban running in the schoolyard and traditional games like ‘chase’ and ‘hopscotch’ in the event a child injures them self, or others.
Playing sports as a child helps you develop a lot of self-esteem due to your teachers/coaches always telling you that you have done well or tried your best. A good coach will always have something good to say and never bring anyone down. Playing sport at a young age also gives you the confidence to make friends who have the same interest in sport as you and these could be friends for life. Playing sports as a child helps you to learn how to handle defeat and makes you realize that winning is not everything, some games you lose and some games you win, and that’s exactly how life works. Sports also help you understand that you have to follow the rules and be well behaved. It also helps you understand that you have to work as a team, as the saying goes there is no ‘I’ in team.
Whilst the parents have ultimate responsibility to ensure their children are engaged in some type of sport or activity the benefits will increase if schools are more sports orientated. Times have changed since the 70’s when most children would have walked or cycled to school. More households now have 2 working parents, schools are further away, hence children are brought by car or bus. As a nation, our children don’t have the ‘natural exercise’ that some of us would have been brought up with.
The University of Illinois undertook a 9 month study of 7- 9 year olds where they found significant improvement in the mental skills of those involved, after just one hour a day of exerise. Their overall concentration improved and those who undertook the testing also done nearly twice as well on mental capability tests compared to those who didn’t partake in the testing.
Whilst not strictly ‘sport or exercise’ Meditation has also been proven to be beneficial, to both children and teachers, with studies showing that Meditation and Mindfullness leads to a longer and healthier life.
With more and more studies promoting the benefits of exercise, in both the childs home and school life its time the Department of Education woke up and realised how important sport is, both for a childs growth and mental health but also so that we can have more sportspeople who can compete on a worlds stage, at a professional level.
We need to ensure, at a very minimum, that ALL children can swim by the time they leave primary school – this is a life skill, and Irish Water Safety should also be pushing for this. Various governing bodies should be visiting schools and providing sessions of the different sports so that the children can see what’s out there for them. I know that recently the FAI and the GAA have both provided sessions in my local primary school, but I also know that not all schools are lucky enough to receive this.
An hour a day of exercise, and maybe 15 minutes of ‘quiet time’ will help our children grow mentally, physically and academically – what else could you want?
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