uGodongwane

Why children should never be allowed to boycott one another in school sport? School sport exists for one reason above all others: the development and wellbeing of children. When pupils are encouraged or even permitted to boycott other children in a school sporting environment, we abandon that purpose and replace it with adult ideology, division, and harm. In the context of a tennis fixture between Roedean School and King David Linksfield, it is essential to state this plainly: children are not political actors, and school sport must never become a proxy battlefield for adult conflicts. 1. Children are not responsible for global politics: No pupil chooses their nationality, religion, or community. Allowing one group of children to refuse to play another teaches a dangerous lesson: that identity alone is grounds for exclusion. That is not activism — it is discrimination, regardless of the intention behind it. Schools exist to protect children from the weight of the world, not place it on their shoulders. 2. Sport is one of the last neutral spaces children have: Tennis courts, fields, and pitches are rare environments where children meet as equals, governed by rules, respect, and shared effort. Once sport becomes conditional on ideology, it stops being sport and becomes segregation by another name. If we allow boycotts today, we teach children that dialogue is optional, empathy is selective, and walking away is preferable to engagement. That lesson will not serve them in adulthood or in society. 3. This is how prejudice is normalised: Boycotting another school because of who its pupils are or who they are perceived to represent embeds collective guilt. History shows us clearly where this leads. Schools should be actively dismantling prejudice, not institutionalising it under the guise of moral positioning. Children learn most powerfully from what adults permit, not what they say. 4. Schools have a duty of care, not a political mandate: Independent school boards and leadership structures are custodians of education, not arbiters of geopolitical morality. Their responsibility is to ensure inclusion, fairness, emotional safety, and educational integrity. Interfering in fixtures on ideological grounds undermines professional educators and sends a message that some children are less deserving of participation than others. 5. Real courage is playing, not boycotting If schools truly want to raise compassionate, resilient young people, the answer is not separation, it is engagement. Let children play. Let them shake hands. Let them compete fiercely and respectfully. Let them see one another as human beings, not symbols. That is how future leaders are formed. Bottom line: Once we allow children to boycott other children in sport, we cross a line that schools should never approach. We replace education with ideology, inclusion with exclusion, and childhood with burden.

We are witnessing the greatest JUSTICE ever for Africa. Morocco have tried so hard to rig their way and win the AFCON but football always wins ❤️🇸🇳 What a crazy strike from Gueye 😮‍💨