I'm singing in the rain

Well, as a testament to our British fortitude we had sports day in the rain. We have a fantastic teacher who coordinates something like 35 different races/games/challenges and each child has a score card in their house team colour. The children are free all morning to go wherever they like on the field and play whichever game takes their fancy. You receive points for how well you do--3 points for first place, 2 points for second and 1 point for third which all go for your house team score. After lunch we do proper competitive races and relays and then the house cup is announced for the team with the most points. Each team elects a male and female sport's captain from year 6 who support and encourage them. The team captain's have to make a little persuasive speech to be elected.  It is great fun because the morning is fun like a fayre without having to pay and the afternoon is more sporty. In the morning even if you come last you still earn team points and you are encouraged to try again to beat your score--we'll cross out the lower one and write your new higher one but we'll never cross out a higher one and make it lower if you do badly on your second go.

My bit was the spud and spoon race. I like to do it every year and I have my little talk about not gripping the potato with your thumb because it is cheating down pat. One year a workmate signed up for it before I saw the list and I forced to do sack race. So now I make sure I am the first to sign up for my beloved spud and spoon race. I like it because I can reuse the same wooden spoons from year to year and compost the potatoes (which are more like mash by noon) in the school compost. Yes we have school compost. all veg scraps and fruit peelings from the staff room (the staff room also puts in a huge amount of tea bags as well) plus the canteen plus the pack lunches go in and the compost is used in gardening club in their organic garden. How cool is that???

So it was ranging from spitting to pissing down to bucketing down on the weather front. We playing in the light to medium rain with kids devising ingenious ways to keep their score cards dry like tucking them in their knickers. So ADHD kids cards were soaked and the ink ran and tore apart and it was not uncommon for them to hand you their cards in 2 or 3 pieces. When it poured we all went in and played games until the rain slacked off a bit then we all went back out and braved the weather for a bit of fun. I ran my game dressed in my giant yellow rain punch and wellies. It was a bit hard to wave the flag to say GO from under the poncho but on the plus side I could keep your card dry as you raced.

The afternoon relays have been postponed as the field is really too muddy for that and we'll do them next week. But I am proud to say we did it. We braved crap conditions with a smile so kids could have a great time. Now I'm going home to dry off and snuggle up with a hot drink and a good book.