Junior Badge Scheme (again!)

[em]

they maybe good for brand new orienteers, but they do seem to act, pretty much the same, as coloured coded courses.
Would it not just be easier for evryone to just have coloured coded and badge events with JM... and JW... ?

[helen]

Two more points:

1) juniors who are new to the sport should be able to recognise age classes when they come into the sport. If they are, say, playing football for under 10s, they would know that they are an M10 in orienteering. it would probably be a strange concept to compete against people older than you as a 9 year old junior, and would probably seem quite daunting.

2) juniors shouldnt have to make the long slog to national events in order to compete in age classes. as someone already said, the junior badge scheme is the colour coded system renamed.

[ruth]

the problem with ages classes is that at most badge events you only get a small handful of people on each class, and so not much competition. i thought that one of the points of the J M/W system was to reduce no of classes so you get more people on each class. it doesn't really seem to have worked because as each M/W class had been given a specific age group which people tend to stick to. If people want to run up then they should and could do on the old system.

[helen]

One more point!

I dont like the naming of the JW5 Long and Short courses. A lot of people mis interpret and seem to think that Short is like an adult short or 'B' course, when actually its the equivelent of W16A. I think more 16s are actually running up now because they feel like they're running a short or B course.

[Mrs H.]

Badge schemes don't mean anything to my children - that's why we havn't got a clue what they are elligible to run in the YBT - they prefer to see how they are comparing to the people around them - but as said if it encourages some then that's good. But if the badge scheme is to be used for anything important (like YBT) then it certainly needs to be properly administered. Perhaps then people will be more interested in it. It just seems a bit hit and miss at the moment.

[Brizzle]

What happened to the M/W 20 classes, they seem to have been lost in the J classes. Suddenly 18's and 20's are put together so there's a huge difference between an 8km JM5L and a 13km M21L. BRING BACK THE AGE CLASSES!

[J.Tullster]

Ruth said:

the problem with ages classes is that at most badge events you only get a small handful of people on each class, and so not much competition

These are the kinds of badge events that I think would be better off being colour coded. The standard of competition would be much higher. I can't see many juniors being dettered by the fact the event won't help them towards their precious next badge.

[HOCOLITE]

It seems that the younger junior feel ageless badge classes push them out like the YBT does as they can be good in their age class but not against 12/14's who may be beginners but are physically stronger and more developed. I know of a whole family group of youngsters who certainly did not like ageless when it started as they wanted to run against their age.

On the plus side it might keep the less able interested in O longer as there is not the compulsion to do more tech or longer courses, but as the juniors have said the colour coded allows this. However as a new orienteer I abandoned colour coded because it was inpossible as a middle aged female to get near a green standard. I much preferred competing in badge courses against my own age. It wasn't for the badge but for ego/confidence whatever.

[Tatty]

When taking entries for events it is very difficult when we were not able to access the pages on the BOF website to say what the new Junior classes were. This took several hours work to find out. Then of course people were still being entered on M14B and it is difficult to know where to place them. If the information was readily to hand it would make it easier alround for competitors and officials. It is new down in the south so we are not very clued up yet! where can we find an up to date, accurate list please? AWK do you have one that could be posted somewhere it could be accessed?

[awk]

Tatty:

Level 1 = M/W10B, White
Level 2 = M/W10A, M/W12B, yellow
Level 3 = M/W12A, M/W14B, orange
Level 4 = M/W14A, M/W16B, light green
JW5S = W16A
JW5L = W18A
JM5S = no equivalent
JM5M = M16A
JM5L = M18A

Hope that helps.

Andrew

[awk]

It seems that the younger junior feel ageless badge classes push them out like the YBT does as they can be good in their age class but not against 12/14's who may be beginners but are physically stronger and more developed.

But in practice, this generally doesn't happen. The results for the younger age classes are dominated by the younger children. The reality is that M/W12/14s get bored with the 'easy' courses and move on, often before they are ready, let alone when they are ready!

Haven't got time to respond to comments on this thread, but I think what people need to take on board is that the old age class system was failing - there is no finer word for it. To go back to it would be disastrous. Those posting here need to be aware that you are the committed ones, the ones that generally are aspiring beyond regional event levels. Feedback from parents and teachers in Aire indicate to me that a return to age classes would reduce our active club membership by between one-third and one-half - and I'm not scaremongering, simply collating.

I would also add that most of the problems cited have occurred because the JM/JW system was only half implemented - the original proposals involved far greater integration with district and national events to provide a much more seamless progression that would satisfy both the beginners and the better juniors (and would still include age class competition at national events for those who believe the system is anti-age class).

In summary, I would strongly suggest that revision needs to look at clearing up the (sometimes very) rough edges of the scheme, NOT reverting to a system that was demonstrably failing.

[awk]

What happened to the M/W 20 classes, they seem to have been lost in the J classes. Suddenly 18's and 20's are put together so there's a huge difference between an 8km JM5L and a 13km M21L. BRING BACK THE AGE CLASSES!

I agree with your concerns, but not the proposed solution. Yes, one of the areas that needs looking at seriously is the issue of M/W20s - they system as it stands doesn't work properly. But learn from it and move on, because sure as anything, returning to a scheme where a majority of M/W20 classes had one or fewer competitors (which is what was happening) is not the answer!!

[Becks]

Those posting here need to be aware that you are the committed ones, the ones that generally are aspiring beyond regional event levels. Feedback from parents and teachers in Aire indicate to me that a return to age classes would reduce our active club membership by between one-third and one-half - and I'm not scaremongering, simply collating.

I'm very aware of this and unsure how to get to these people. I've thought abot putting questionnaires in people's club magazines but the idea of contacting all club magazines writers to get something in just seemed too monstrous for someone who's already up to her neck in Street Race Organisation, Outreach Schemes and Finals in there somewhere! Does anyone have any ideas?

[Rich]

As far as I can see there were two reasons to change the junior system
1) Encourage newcomers to continue by offering them easier courses.
2) Some classes had very few people run them.

1)Well is there any evidence that this system actually encourages newcomers?

Looking at the old system -
If you look at the courses at the different ages you'll find that there is a suitable course for a newcomer. The only ages I see this being a problem is 18+ where the only avalable age classes are light green +. This would therefore be a problem for 21's to, so would this also need to be extended?

2) Looking at the new system some events still have very few runners on them.

What happened to the M/W 20 classes, they seem to have been lost in the J classes. Suddenly 18's and 20's are put together so there's a huge difference between an 8km JM5L and a 13km M21L. BRING BACK THE AGE CLASSES!

The problem was the M/W20 classes hardly ever had people run them with most running up to M21L.

[jab]

I'm typing this because it's quicker, but my 9 year old son has told me what to say!
Badges have been a major motivating factor for him, from being desperate last year for one last result at JM1 to get him his silver badge, to achieving championship at M10A this year. Last Sunday he "ran up" to JM3 and the first question he asked whenhe saw the results was "did I get my gold standard?". Now it isn't always easy to find the answer to questions like these - the badge standards often don't appear with the results (though they did for last Sunday's event). We are sufficiently persistent to chase down the badge rules on the BOF website and calculate the times ourselves, but I can see why people don't bother.

For many junior courses the badge times are just based on the winners time as fewer than 10 people start the course, so the maths is simple, but the answers are strongly dependent on who enters. The rule that upset him most was the fact that boys' badge times could be calculated from girls' times when the reverse wasn't true - at the time the girls' times were generally faster so it disadvantged the boys, or so he perceived. (I'm just the scribe here, do don't flame me about this, it's very much a 9 year old's view of "fair "and "unfair". )

About ageless junior classes: from the time my son was running string courses he would grab the results and look to see whether the people who had beaten him were older or younger than him. So he likes ageless classes when he beats lots of older kids and gets cross with them when he is beaten on JM2 by a 14 year old, which I suppose means he wants the best of both worlds - like most 9 year olds!

As a parent I would say that it's easier to encourage him to try a JM3 than it would be to get him to try M12A when he's only 9 - that may just be his personality. In practice, of course, the JM3 courses often have plenty of M10s on them and many of the M12s are running JM4 so he is still competing against his peer group to a large extent. I would say the current system works for OK for us (as a keen but not fanatical orienteering family)