As the end of the school year approaches there are a number of things which need to be taken into consideration, the most popular of these is sports day.

Although sports days are still popular in schools, they are no longer allowed to consist of the classic events such as the egg and spoon or the sack races due to modern day health and safety regulations, this asks the question: is the era of sports days over?

Of course not!

These days can be used to promote sportsmanship between groups of children who would never talk to each other, whilst being able to bring staff, students, carers and parents into a level playing field, as well as also acting as a catharsis from the usual grind of the school week for thousands of young people all over the country as the desperate wait for six weeks of summer continues.

Despite its’ popularity, the amount of time put into sports days from smaller schools is decreasing, this is as a result of the lack of sporting facilities for the next generation. However, since the 2012 Olympic Games was given to London with the tagline “inspire a generation” more and more funding has gone to schools in order to improve their sports coaching and equipment.

A lack of qualified sports coaches in primary and infant schools has not helped the government’s plans, However, with schools feeling the effect of the current financial climate they are unable to use any extra funds on sport specific staff.

Because of this, children are less likely to develop a love for sport from an early age meaning that this is less likely to begin the rise of stars for the future.

Despite this lack of internal sports coaching in schools, there are hundreds of external sources of sports coaching all over the country offering top quality coaching for the countries’ future athletes.

The rise of these independent organisations has made a significant difference to the development of school sports in the UK, they are also able to go into schools to improve sports days by allowing the school to have qualified sports coaches to provide a positive outside influence on the benefits of sport in order to inspire the children into regularly taking part in activities with numerous known benefits.

Despite this lack of internal sports coaching in primary schools, sports day remains as a big day on every school’s calendar and with staff, students, families and carers all benefiting, it isn’t difficult to see why.