Sports day

Sports days, sometimes referred to as field days, are events staged by many schools and offices in which people take part in competitive sporting activities, often with the aim of winning trophies or prizes. Though they are often held at the beginning of summer, they are also 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, or grades Kindergarten-8th Grade.

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 races. Three legged races are run as well as sack races, wheelbarrow races, and parent and child races.

Sports Day (film)

Sports Day is a 1945 short film directed by Francis Searle for Gaumont British Instruction. It featured an early appearance of Jean Simmons.

Plot

A schoolboy almost misses the school sports day when he is wrongly punished for cruelty to a dog.

Cast

Notes

Francis Searle, the director, worked with Gaumont British Screen Services and Gaumont-British Instruction for seven years. Interviewed in 1995 he explained the situation when the Second World War broke out. "We were put on the reserved list and seconded to the Army , Navy and Air Force for training films , in conjunction with the MoI - we made films like Citizens Advice Bureau, and Sam Pepys joins the Navy, Hospital Nurse. " In the interview he describes how he came to work with Jean Simmons.

“I also worked at Merton Park with Jean Simmons, who I cast in a short picture. Mary Field and Bruce Woolf were the bosses at GBI. (Gaumont British Instruction). Mary Field did children's films and she had a film she offered to me (Sports Day, 1945). Aida Foster, who was a big agent for juveniles, set up an audition and Jean, aged about fourteen, came on as bright as a button; she had learned the part and that was it. I didn’t bother looking at any of the others.'