National School Sports Week 2022
Sport plays an important part of every child’s education and development. After the huge disruption over the past 2 years, we have witnessed a sense of alienation and inequalities in their health and activity levels.
We believe there is so much for all our young people to gain from school sport by connecting with others, developing important life skills and improving both their physical and mental health. To achieve this we designed a specific program whereby every Winston student experienced something different from their PE lesson throughout the week.
Students from Years 8, 9 & 10 took part in alternative activities such as Korf Ball, Tchoukball, Stoolball, AFL & Quidditch. Teamwork plays a huge part in these sports, so every student built on their communication skills and enjoyed the experience.
We were also able to highlight the importance of their health, both in body and mind. They completed a series of strength & conditioning circuits focusing on components of fitness for muscular endurance, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, and power. There was also a station demonstrating how diaphragmatic breathing plays an important role during rest and rehabilitation, repairing both the body and the brain.
With the Commonweath Games in Birmingham fast approaching, our Year 8 participated in their very own mini-Olympics with events such as welly wanging, the sack race, the egg & spoon race, an obstacle race and the steeple chase. They competed in their form groups and positively encouraged one another to achieve their best and to believe in themselves.
With STEM being instrumental for our future generations, the Grenadier Guards returned to work with our students in Year 9 and 10 focusing on teamwork activities playing to the strengths of logical thinking and effective communication skills.
Competition can motivate you to use your best effort; it can help foster collaboration and teamwork; and to gain an understanding of how to handle stress, lack of self-belief and resilience. It is healthy and important for our students to be exposed to competition to help them develop vital life skills. Competition played a part last week in our Staff & Student Tennis Tournament and our Parent & Student Golf Tournament.
It was fantastic to see an increase in both staff and student tennis participation from previous years. It was packed full of excitement with an ace being served by Mrs Daniels, impressive rallying from Toby B, to Mr Reed's last school tennis competition. Mr Jones & his partner James P were the overall winners!
Our golf tournament had 9 students pairing with their parents and luckily the rain and thunderstorms held off for a great day of golf at Sutton Green Golf Club. Luke C and his Dad were victorious with highlights from a few birdies by several students, and even Mr Cotton.
In the forest they took part in caving where they had to manoeuvre themselves through a series of tunnels in the dark; to working together to create the highest tower by stacking crates and balancing to stand on the top. Accuracy and nerve played a role in shooting arrows in archery and working out how to climb the high obstacle ropes.
Participation last week gave the chance for our Sports Prefects to design, manage and lead a series of sporting activities where they were able to demonstrate their skills as exemplary role models to our younger students. These prefects are inspirational mentors illustrating why sport is important and the many benefits it can bring.
Some of our Sports Prefects were part of our Year 10 GSCE PE group who managed at the end of the week to unofficially break the world record for the half marathon. They arranged a mass sprint interval session where each student completed 8 to 10 x100m sprints to be able to complete the distance. Each had a responsibility, heavily relying on teamwork, to achieve a time of 54 minutes and 44 seconds - this time broke the world record by 3 minutes and 27 seconds!
Finally, we are not able to stage this week without the support of the rest of our school staff team. Last week really did demonstrate the importance of whole school community teamwork in achieving a positive experience and successful results!
