With the 2025 Sports Day behind us, attention is now turning to the 2026 Sports Day. Questions would be held on whether Sports Day will be held at Bukit Jalil or a return to Panasonic Stadium Shah Alam.
Nobel cannot hold a combined Sports Day for the Elementary and Junior and Senior School at the Panasonic Stadium in 2026 due to the increased size of students studying at Nobel. Back in 2014, according to the school newsletter, The Excalibur, the size of the entire Junior and Senior School cohort is at a total of 600 students, with five classes per year level (N, O, B, E, L). The student population for the Junior and Senior School in 2025 is double that number, at around 1200 students with a total of nine classes per year level, namely Wholesome, Happy, Courageous, Empathetic, Grateful, Resilient, Insightful, Noble, Mindful, Thoughtful and Sincere. The field size of 600 students is now limited to the total of only 3 year levels in Nobel International School. In 2008, the total student population for the Elementary School was also 600, with around 400 Junior and Senior School students. The population total for Nobel in 2025 is now around twice that of 2008, the very first year Nobel begun to use the Panasonic Stadium for sports events.
If Nobel were to hold a combined Sports Day, it will need to re-rent the Bukit Jalil Stadium again for 2026. This is because the facilities at Bukit Jalil are in tip-top condition and easy to access, due to an LRT station at the stadium complex. The large roofs effectively mitigated the rainy weather at Bukit Jalil and allowed sports events to continue despite the rainy weather. However, should Nobel insist on holding Panasonic Stadium sports events, the Sports Day for the Junior and Senior School as well as the Elementary School will have to be split. The carpark at Bukit Jalil is bigger. The stadium is more spacious and the atmosphere much better than the Panasonic Stadium. The only other time Nobel held a Sports Day outside of Panasonic Stadium was in 2014, at the Stadium Petaling Jaya next to Kelana Jaya Park, but the facilities there weren't good either.
Holding a combined Sports Day would reduce costs and unify the school. At the same time, it will also allow for easier preparation of logistics. The only major obstacle to this is the cost of holding the Sports Day at Bukit Jalil.
The Sports Day is held at Bukit Jalil this year in order to take advantage of the free booking period for a Sports Day, launched in 2023 by Hannah Yeoh, the Minister of Youth and Sports, to allow schools to rent the stadium for free in conjunction with the 25th Anniversary of the Kuala Lumpur Sports City, the stadium complex consisting of the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, National Hockey Stadium, National Aquatics Center, Axiata Arena and various other venues such as the National Sports Institute and the Bukit Jalil Sports School. The free booking period will end in September 2025, thus rendering the stadium useless.
If Nobel International School continues to choose the Bukit Jalil National Stadium for future Sports Days, certain modifications and alterations will need to be made to our banner and props for the Sports Day as certain parties had voiced concerns over the potential safety and security risks caused by them. This can be done by modifying and reducing the size of the banner and the number of props to be used on Sports Day, as Nobel had signed a contract with the stadium when renting the stadium premises for the Sports Day 2025, which limited the amount of stuff that spectators can bring. To make matters worst, even if we brought our banner which is quite big, there is no space to hang the banner since there is a large fence and drain blocking the view of the banner to the athletes, which isn't the case at Panasonic Stadium.
On one hand, Nobel might return to Panasonic Stadium as it is a familiar venue and that the rental cost is lower. However, Nobel might want to continue to rent Bukit Jalil as the venue despite the high cost as the venue is more safe and secure than the Panasonic Stadium. Therefore, some circumstances might need to be held if the Sports Day is held at either venue.
The next concern that should be raised is the segregation of students and alumni on Sports Day.
Since 2014, when we started our journey to make Bullseye win and win again, we were still students in Nobel International School. This made it easier to plan, communicate, discuss and cheer with the students. However, what needs to be noted is that all students currently with Nobel will leave the school. Therefore, in order to continue to make Bullseye win in order to meet the growing demand for Bullseye victories, certain circumstances will need to be considered in order to unite the Bullseye members on either side, be it students or alumni.
On Sports Day, alumni are ushered to the parents' row to view the Sports Day. This will not be concerning if the parents' stand is next to Bullseye, as it was the case in 2019 and 2023. However, if the Bullseye and parents' stand are segregated by another house between it (2024 by Touchdown and 2025 by Slamdunk), this may be very concerning, as one will need to pass through another house to get to the Bullseye stand. This may also distract and disturb other houses. Certain things may need to be sorted out for the Sports Day before the dawn of 2026. But the biggest concern should not be the arrangement on Sports Day but the communication between us and the Bullseye members.
Currently, it is very difficult to communicate both online and offline. Everyone in Nobel International School who uses Instagram will have a privacy feature added to their account because they are under 18. While privacy is greatly respected, this may be a problem when communicating together for the Sports Day. Hence, if anyone from Bullseye can update us, that will be great. Secondly, even if we were to communicate physically, the security policy in Nobel is quite strict. The security people will watch us outside of school. So, in such a situation, it is difficult to communicate with them when we are presumed to be suspicious. The school authorities can purposely use this barrier to subdue the power of Bullseye, so it should be raised with great concern.
What is your thought on this?
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