As a keen sports player and an A Level Psychology student, I thought I would explore the link between Psychology and Sport. It is well known that elite athletes use psychological concepts to help improve their performance. However, playing sport can also psychologically benefit all aspects of life. Personally, I find sport helps my concentration and improves my work performance. I was interested to see whether physical activity could help pupils with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or poor working memory. To research this further and to help with my own post as Head of Sport, I have been keen to draw in a few girls who find academics slightly more challenging but who are able to enjoy success in sport and working as a team.
There are 3-6% of people who are diagnosed with dyslexia in the UK and this usually presents itself in primary school aged children, although many can be diagnosed as late as university age. Children with dyslexia often have slower reading ability, poor working memory and difficulty in storing information into the short-term memory store. Poor working memory can be spotted in the student who seems unable to remember a list of instructions given verbally. This can affect their ability to do mental arithmetic as they cannot remember and hold the information in the memory and manipulate the information. This in turn can have a detrimental effect on their confidence. An experiment was conducted by McDougall et al with 90 children that had been split into three different groups; poor, moderate and good readers. These psychologists found that the poor readers had lower working memory but good readers articulate words much faster, so more words could be remembered. This showed that dyslexia may be partly explained by basic inefficiency in phonological processing and storage.
It has been shown that physical activity is not only important for any child but that it is extremely beneficial to children with dyslexia. The slower reading speeds that are caused by dyslexia result in children spending more time on prep than their peers. People with this learning disability feel that they need to work for a longer period of time to produce the same work as those who don’t have this problem. Participating in sport can contribute to a child’s positive self-image and can help to improve academic performance. Every student needs to feel that they can be successful in something and there are so many sports that you can choose from. Calne prides itself on the core sports such as lacrosse, hockey and netball. There are no pressures to pass an exam in sports and there are different levels that you can play at. Recently we started a football team and the first match saw victory over Marlborough College. We had girls in that team who are rarely seen in any other sports capacity and you could feel the excitement as they experienced their first success. They had the kudos of being winners and this should help with all aspects of school life. I also believe that all work and no play diminishes the ability to learn and to learn with confidence. Working as a team may not be for everyone, but you can do other things such as the gym or dance and these also help with relaxation and feeling confident after a stressful day in the classroom.
Personally, I find getting out of the boarding house to play some sport or exercise not only makes me healthier, but makes me more confident in knowing that academics aren’t everything. There is more to life than worrying about the next essay title, although it is important of course. I have found that sports are a lifeline. Sport gives me the chance to be part of a close team who support each other. It also gives me the opportunity to let off steam and, as I have moved up the school, I have appreciated the chance to lead others and to encourage the younger year groups. I love seeing other people enjoying sport and getting fun from it. It’s not all about competition, although for myself this is an important aspect, it is also about feeling good and achieving something, even if it’s just adding an extra length in the swimming pool.
Jemima (Head of Sport)
