Colman Noctor: Sport and study are not opposites but partners in academic success

From 8.50am until 4pm, they are expected to sit at desks, listen, absorb, and produce work. By the time they get home, they’ve already spent six or seven hours in a sedentary mode.

Anyone who has raised a teenage boy knows the restless energy that simmers just beneath the surface. School, however, asks for stillness.

IT’S Tuesday evening, and I find myself standing in the kitchen at 9.15 pm, waiting for the kettle to boil, while staring at the Pot Noodle I am making for my 15-year-old son. He has just come home, buzzing with excitement because his football coach told him he did well during his training session. Within minutes, he was in the shower, and now he’s at the kitchen table, books spread out, insisting he has five paragraphs of Irish to write before bed, or else he will be ‘deducted merit points’. He started his homework earlier, but still had more to do.

I sigh, not because I don’t admire his conscientious work ethic, but because I know what’s coming: the clock will creep towards midnight, the alarm will still be set for 7.30am, and he will spend another day of school yawning through his classes. I wonder how long he can keep all the balls in the air, literally and figuratively.