Sport Round-Up - Dec 2020

Round-up of sport from Head of Girls' Sport, Emma Chambers, and Head of Boys' Sport, Kevin Smith.

This half term brought some challenges with it that we hadn't faced in the first half of term, such as year groups being required to isolate. At school we worked on ball skills, football, hockey, rugby and netball with various year groups.  At home we explored some different ideas in our online teaching. The isolating year groups had the opportunity to take part in two IAPS virtual competitions: fitness and gymnastics. They also worked hard in our circuit training and live workouts. Years 7 and 8 enjoyed some tactical and theory based sessions and very much enjoyed the Kahoot! quizzes. Their last session was a 'lockdown Olympics' with a range of challenges: some skill based, some knowledge based and some just for amusement!

Dream Team of the Week continued, whether pupils were at home or in school, and focused on various strands of High Performance Learning such as resilience and hard work.

As well as swimming, our PE programme for this half term has focused on some different sports for the pupils, which they enjoyed enormously.

• Years 3 and 4 took on pop lacrosse and have been working on their stick skills
• Year 5 and 7 girls had training in football 
• Years 5 and 7 boys focused on hockey skills
• Years 6 and 8 girls played rugby
• Year 6 and 8 boys played netball and learnt key skills

The term culminated in internal competitions in these new sports where possible.

Swimming

Competitive swimming returned to Westbourne House albeit virtually. Due to current restrictions, our pupils were unable to race against Hurstpierpoint in the pool but they invited us to join them in a ‘Virtual Swimming Gala’.

Miss Pullen explained the virtual gala to the pupils and they worked hard to achieve the best times they could in time trials. She said: “It has been a great way to focus the children in our swimming lessons. All our Prep School pupils worked very hard to achieve as many times as they could for this event, and I am thrilled to say 51 pupils from Year 4 - Year 8 ended up contributing to this gala.”

There were nine individual race winners and Westbourne performed particularly well in the relays.  Overall, it was closely fought, and we are very excited to report Westbourne won with 180 points to Hurst's 175 points.

Most valued swimmer was Alexis, who won both her individual races and was part of both winning relay teams, and swimmer of the match was Walter for his new U11 50m breaststroke record.

Well done team Westbourne and thank you Hurstpierpoint for a brilliant event.

Inter-Patrol Competitions

We have managed to complete some of our usual inter-patrol competitions within their year group bubbles and included some of the 'new' sports into the mix! Results are as follows:

Squash Squad

After a delayed start to Squash Squads this term due to restrictions, we are now in full swing and back on court at Westbourne House.

Mr Hanley said: "This Year 6 group are all new to the game but they are all starting to pick it up really nicely. Their skills are improving and they are starting to understand the angles a bit better. It’s always nice to finish off the term with our 'Christmas Special' squash squad which involves a few games!"