OK, wthout wishing to show my age, when I was at school, end of year exam results culminated in a class place. You knew who was top and you knew who was bottom and more than anything else; you knew where you stood in the class and thus where you stood in life. You knew what you had to aim for and when you tried harder and you got a higher place, you knew you'd done well. Maybe that was a bit ruthless for the kid at the bottom of the class so losing that "place" structure was not all bad but now we seem to have gone absolutely batty!

A friend recently mentioned that that it was her son's School Sports Day coming up but that it wouldn't be much fun to watch as it was "non-competitive". I couldn't quite figure that one out so I asked, how can a Sports Day be non-competitive? Well, apparently, all the competitive races are banned to ensure that no child ever "suffers the humiliation of losing a race"!?

Next day, I learnt from another friend that works in a school that literally every child got a prize on Prize Day - right down to the truant who managed to improve his attendance record to an "impressive" 37% during the year!?

Ignoring the actual issue of truancy, what's with this non-competitive cr**? Whether we like it or not - life IS competitive! From applying for your very first job onwards you compete - you compete against other applicants for the job in the first place and having gotten the job you are measured by your successes and your failures and the more successful you are, the more you are rewarded with remuneration and promotion.

So surely this non-competitive stuff is not equipping our children with the life skills that they will need to survive in life? They are not learning how to be a winner and, more importantly, they are not learning how to be good losers rather than sore losers! Winning and losing are part of life - "you win some, you lose some" - have often do you hear it said and it's true. I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm bad at - take singing. I'd love to be a singer and capture an audience with my voice but I know I don't have a cat's chance. I can't sing for toffee! At school my music teacher made me mime rather than sing! I'm not even allowed to whistle in the house I'm so tuneless! But equipped with this information I knew not to pursue a career as a singer or to enter the Eurovision Song Contest.

We are all winners and we are all losers - and whether we like it or not - knowing our skill set allows us to make the best of them and to get the most out of life. And for those of you that are still thinking that competition isn't fair because losing isn't fair - as my granddad once told me "Get used to it sweetheart, life isn't fair!"