ANOTHER CORNER TURNED ?

One of the upshots from the Olympics was to force a U-turn in the attitude towards winning and losing.   Of course the Olympic ideal is that it is not the winning that matters, but the taking part and, although unlikely, that ideal may have unconsciously driven the attitude in schools across the country for the past years. It seemed to reach the stage whereby winning was almost ignored as being socially unacceptable, whereas huge praise was heaped upon the losers - `There, there, it doesn`t matter that you didn`t win, you were brilliantly wonderful and we`re so proud of you.`

The Olympics may have changed all that and there are rumours of a change of attitude and political strategy which will encourage competitive sports in schools, presumably to breed another clutch of medal winners for future Games, such is the knock-on political kudos brought about for our elected leaders by the successes of Team GB.

And it seems that not only sport has been affected by the seduction of winning.   For more years than I can remember, there has been a year on year increase in the successes achieved through exam results in our schools.   That sustained level of improvement surely reached the stage when people suspected that either the questions were getting simpler and/or the marking system was more generous than perhaps it should have been.   Cynicism took over, which led to a growing perception that our young people might not have been as smart as their exam results suggested - probably an unfair conclusion to have reached.

There is, of course, a lot of unfairness in the world and, judging by the cries of anguish from teachers, parents and pupils, a lot of resentment that things might be getting just a little harder.   But in education, like in sport, there`s no substitute for hard work, dedication and determination to do well and if success comes as a result, then it is all the more satisfying for the work put in and the rigour of the test.

I suggest that any real satisfaction in life comes from doing things the hard way and that before you can enjoy the winning, you`ve first got to learn how to lose.   These latest changes in attitude might just allow us to turn another corner away from a cosy acceptance of being also rans in the game of life into becoming outright winners.   And not before time.