On the playing fields of Eton

Read the text very carefully and answer the questions

Why did Napoleon lose the battle of Waterloo? 

Because the officers in the British army did a lot of sport when they were at school! 

That’s what the Duke of Wellington (who won the battle) thought. 

He says that sport teaches young men to work together in a team, to think fast and to win! 

His officers, he says, learn their most important lessons on the playing-fields of Eton. 

Eton is a famous and very rich English public school. 

Sport is always the most important school subject there. 

It still has its playing-fields!

Teachers today are beginning to think, like the Duke of Wellington, that sport is good for pupils. 

So a lot of schools are trying to give pupils more time for sport.

Some pupils now spend three or four hours a week on sports lessons. In winter, for example, they spend forty minutes a week on swimming, forty minutes on badminton, and two hours on hockey or football. In summer, they will do swimming and badminton, but play cricket instead of hockey or football. 

But it isn’t all. A lot of schools have school teams in three or four sports. They play matches on Saturdays, against teams from other schools. The pupils who are in these teams train in the evenings during the week, and they must come to school again for the matches on Saturdays, when there are no lessons.

Why do they work so hard at sport? Because they enjoy it, of course! But there’s another reason. Pupils in Britain usually take exams in about seven subjects when they are sixteen. Now, one of the subjects that they can choose is sport. If they want to do well in their sports exams, they have to do a lot of sports. So sport in British schools is a serious business.

Adapted from different sources by Mrs Williams

1. Say if the sentences are Right or Wrong. Justify but don’t copy the text.                        

a. Eton is an ordinary school.

b. British pupils do sports at school outside school times.

c. The Army officers who were in the battle of Waterloo went to Eton.

d. For pupils, sport is not a school subject, it’s just a hobby.

2. Answer the following questions in your own words.                                                 

a. Who were the 2 opponents* in the battle of Waterloo? Be precise.         *adversaires

b. Who won that battle of Waterloo? Why?                  

c. Find the famous traditional British sport (not practised in France) mentioned in the text?

d. Do British pupils practise sports in winter? Explain.                  

e. When do British pupils train for their sport teams?        

Ask someone to correct those 2 exercises.