What constitutes "success" for a school sports programme? Exactly what excellent looks like is a vital decision for a school. Until it knows what it is aiming to achieve, it will be impossible to judge whether or not it has been successful. Oddly, the success criteria are rarely, if ever, displayed or communicated around a school, to its parent body, or in its PR materials.

There may be some woolly ideological statement about nurturing the unique talents and interests of each child, but certainly no answers to the complex questions about the importance of winning, and the...

Upcoming Presentation by David Shenk, author, The Genius in All of Us: New Insights into Genetics, Talent, and IQ

on January 30, 2015 at the Oxford Hotel in Oxford as the keynote presentation for the 2015 PADSIS Conference.

Do talent and intelligence come from Nature or from Nurture? That question has been hotly debated for more than a century. David will explain why it's the wrong question, and will help PADSIS members to think about talent and achievement in an entirely new way.

It begins with a new understanding of genes and their dynamic interaction with...

It is extraordinary how sticky the memories of sporting moments can be. Middle aged adults who can't remember what happened the week before, or the names of people that they met yesterday, can recall with the utmost clarity the details of sporting encounters of thirty years previously. Particular occasions stay long in the memory. Details of games, who played in them, the weather, the score, individual goals, tackles, injuries - even the social sojourn of the return journey.

These cherished recollections are not just of the defining moments of sport - of Cup Finals...