Sports Half-term Round Up

The summer holidays provided an excellent kick start for the new sporting calendar! There were pre-season tours to Exeter (girls’ 1st XI and U14), and Macclesfield (1st and U16 XV) leading into the new term. The girls’ hockey programme has been hugely successful to date, with our U16s winning their County Tier competition, and the U13 and U14 teams coming runners up in their respective events, with all qualifying for the regional tournaments after half term. The 1st team moved past Sherborne into the second round of the National Schools Competition with a 3- 1 victory away from home.  They now play Millfield in the next round. From an individual perspective, we have four players involved in the Performance Centre training, Flo Hunt, Josh Lang, Ned Boursin and George Nicholls, whilst participation levels across all ages are at an all-time high.  Indeed, all the girls from Years 7 to 9 have represented the School in competitive hockey at some point this term, a truly superb achievement.

During the first half of the Autumn Term, our rugby team have had a full-on programme with ‘participation and performance’ at the forefront of everything that they do. We have run five senior teams (1st XV – U16B), with fifteen teams in total performing most weekends. A number of players are involved in the Player Development programme, and a special mention needs to go to Max Ojomoh and Jack Bertinet who are both in the Bath RFC U18 team, with Max having already played for Bath United (Bath RFC 2nd XV) this season. As is usual for this time of the year, our netballers are busily preparing for the various County and Regional events, and we wish them well as the tournaments begin.

In October, some 26 athletes across different age groups took part in the Schools Biathlon Championship at the University of Bath. They achieved some excellent results, with a number coming first in their age group: Sam Blacker (U19), Alex Marshall (U14), Alex Knight (U13) and Alex Hearn (U12) whilst our U13 boys and U12 girls also won the team competition. Some will qualify for the National Finals which take place in the lead up to Christmas. Charlotte Lang (Year 7) took her excellent form from the schools’ event into the South West Championship, where her time/points achieved ranked her in the top two in the country.

Enhancing the sports programme here at School, we value the benefits that a sports tour can offer our pupils and this term we have launched a Rugby and Netball tour to Canada in 2020, aimed at our current Years 9 and 10, and of course, our 1st team cricketers have the Dubai Easter 2019 trip to look forward to as well! We have also constructed a ‘Pre-season’ short-haul touring schedule for our senior pupils (current Years 11 and 12) for 2019/20, which could see the major sports visit certain European destinations, including Switzerland, France and Belgium.

From a staffing perspective, the PE and Games Department welcomes Gregg Barrett, Jason Bye, Beth Fuller and Elliot Robertshaw onto the coaching team, along with Nick Gray, who is predominantly based in the Junior School.