Sports Round-Up Easter Term 2023 | Westbourne House School

A round-up of the sport at Westbourne House School in the Easter term. We've shared lots of photos - please keep scrolling!

Girls’ Sport

This has been a busy term for the girls. The U8s, U9s & U10s have played a number of hockey fixtures and the U11s, U12s & U13s have played a number of netball fixtures. All year groups have also competed in football fixtures.

Hockey

The U8’s training this term has mainly focused on ball control and effective use of space. Everyone demonstrated confidence when tackling and bucketloads of resilience. The girls thoroughly enjoyed taking part in both matches and festivals.

The U9s had a combination of matches and festivals. The girls have been open minded towards playing all the different positions. They have been learning where they needed to be on the pitch and what their role was. Their first hockey fixture was a friendly festival with a number of visiting schools. The girls showed great progress throughout the afternoon. The A team travelled to Highfield for a festival. Again, there were a number of different schools and the girls thoroughly enjoyed playing them all. All of the girls participated in the PGS festival. This was a great afternoon of hockey for the girls. The teams also played fixtures against Twyford, Highfield and Amesbury.

The U10s have been hit with illness and injuries this term but it has not stopped all those who were fit and able to play in a number of fixtures. The A team played in two tournaments. They came 3rd in the Westbourne House tournament and played exceptionally well at PGS where they played seven matches and only lost one! The B team enjoyed an afternoon out at the PGS festival where they had a combination of wins, draws and losses. The team’s most successful matches were against PHS and Brighton Girls and their toughest matches, similar to the A team, were against Twyford. The C team played three fixtures and won two of them, including the match against Twyford. The girls thoroughly enjoyed continuing to develop their understanding of hockey and a number of girls had a go at goalkeeping.

Netball

The U11s have had a very busy netball season. They have played a combination of 5-a-side and 7-a-side fixtures. The A team played seven matches and attended three tournaments, coming third at the Westbourne House and Twyford tournaments. They competed at the Cranleigh IAPS regional tournament and got through to the plate. The B team played eight matches and participated in the Westbourne House U11A tournament. They won five of their matches. The C team had a rather successful season. They played nine matches and only lost two, both to Twyford. The girls have shown great versatility when playing 5-a-side netball but it is clear they enjoy playing in their preferred positions when playing 7-a-side.

Our U12s have had a very successful season. They have played a number of fixtures and demonstrated great teamwork and resilience throughout. The A team played a total of 12 matches and won seven of these. They competed in the Westbourne House tournament resulting in a superb first place against a number of top schools in the local area. They also participated in SISNA, which was a great competition resulting in third place in their group. IAPS Nationals held in Ipswich, was the big finale of the season. They worked extremely hard and resulted in third overall in their pool and went through to the plate quarter finals, where they narrowly missed out with a result of 7-4. The B team participated in seven matches and won three. All very close and great competition during the season. The C team has consisted of a mixture of pupils across year groups but they came away with a fantastic win vs Seaford College. The girls should be proud of their sporting achievements and how much they have developed as a year group.

The U13s have had a tremendous season with numerous wins in fixtures, tournaments and worked their socks off! Our U13As played a total of nine matches and won seven. They came first in our very own Westbourne House tournament and third in their group at SISNA. They had a brilliant result against Brighton College - 16-0. They also participated in the tournament at Hurstpierpoint College where they came first in their group with some brilliant netball being played. IAPS regionals they came away with fourth place, which was a great result having faced some good teams, and meant they very narrowly missing out on going to the nationals. Our U13Bs had a strong season with five wins out of six matches. There were some high scoring games and they participated in the Westbourne House tournament, which they thoroughly enjoyed and was a great learning opportunity as they faced many A teams. The U13C team had a busy season with nine fixtures overall and two strong wins at the start. The girls worked hard as a team and demonstrated great versatility in every single match. The girls should be hugely pleased with their performances on the whole, with fantastic results all round.

Girls’ Football

The U8s and U9s played their first ever football fixture against Amesbury. Amesbury had already played a couple of matches against other schools so were already a little more experienced than the Westbourne House teams. The girls showed amazing effort and resilience. The U9s secured one win, one draw and one loss. The U8 teams lost their matches but fought hard.

Unfortunately the U8 festival that was due to be held at Edgeborough had to be cancelled due to snow! However, the U9s were still able to travel to Highfield for a quadrangular with Edgeborough, St Edmunds and Highfield. The A teams from each school were very evenly matched and the Westbourne A team achieved three draws. The B team had two very close games where they lost by only one or two goals. However, they had a storming match against St Edmunds and won 5-1. The C team played two matches and again these were close matches but Highfield and Edgeorough came out on top. This was a very exciting start to junior girls’ football at Westbourne House.

The U10-U13 girls played inter-patrol football on a rather wet and muddy Wednesday afternoon. The owls were victorious in both the Y5/6 and Y7/8 competition. They also played Highfield in what has become an annual football fixture for the girls. The U10s played three close matches with the B team securing a win. The U11s were incredibly successful. All three teams won and a total of 11 goals were scored! Y7/8 put out four teams against Highfield. The U13A and U13B team won their matches and the U13C and U12B team both put up a good fight.

Boys’ Sport

Rugby

This term saw the culmination of the boys' rugby season, which lead on to our hockey season with all boys in the school having a number of fixtures to sink their teeth into.

The U13 team continued to play some excellent rugby, the season finishing with a really hard earned 20-20 draw against Aldro, fighting back from 15-5 down at half time. This season the team was well led by the co-captains, Johnny K and Walter DL. Both received their colours for rugby, along with Hugh F, Felix B, Rafferty M and Noah C.

Since half term the U13s have been playing rugby 7’s alongside their hockey and have played in three tournaments. The first was at Shrewsbury House where we finished third in the bowl. We played some really good rugby but to be honest, at this stage, we were still learning how to play the game properly! Two days later we entered the Aldro 7’s tournament and, having won our group, found ourselves in the Cup competition. Our first match was against the team who had won the previous event, so we knew we were up against it. We managed to narrowly beat them 14-12, showing how much we had progressed in just two days. We finished third over all that day but did incredibly well against schools with 50-80 boys in each year! Finally we ended the season with the Rosslyn Park 7’s, the biggest rugby 7’s tournament in the world! After a full day of rugby we came away with one win, three draws and a loss which against the schools we were draw against was a really good effort.

Mr Geffen’s U12 side made some really pleasing progress throughout the season. Having been plagued by injury in the first half of term, we managed to put out some more full strength squads but with only enough boys to put out one team, there was plenty of rotation.

Although this can sometimes be tricky to manage, the boys who found themselves on the edge of the team stepped up impressively to make pleasing contributions. Mr Tyrrel refers to one of the rare occasions where we had an U12B team out this year as his highlight of the season. It was a loss 40-55 to Highfield but Ewen M managed to score six tries as well as putting in an outstanding defensive shift. The season highlight for Mr Geffen was perhaps the hard fought win over Aldro in the last match of the year. Special mentions to Felix T, Oscar P, Xander R and Oli F, who all had stand out seasons.

The U11 squads went from strength to strength this term producing some really pleasing results. The highlight of the season for this group was winning the U11 Pelican Cup held at Brighton College. Throughout the day we scored an impressive 23 tries, conceding just four. We beat the hosts, Brighton College 3-2 in a really close final to bring the trophy and medals back to Westbourne House.

The U10’s season continued where it left off before Christmas. This year group played 21 matches this season, losing just two, with the A team remaining unbeaten throughout the season. There was a lot of rotation through the teams this season and that is a reflection of the strength in depth in this year group. The level of rugby being played in the lower teams in particular is very impressive.

The junior part of the school has enjoyed a slightly longer season than the seniors, with fixtures running into the latter part of the term. The U9s got stuck into their first season of contact rugby and had a really good balance of fixtures winning just over 60% of their matches as a year group. The U9 rugby was spearheaded by Mr Jeynes, who has been really impressed with the boys' attitude. Perhaps the highlight for him was a hotly contested fixture with Highfield. We lost to them before Christmas and managed to reverse the result in a really close game at home, winning nine tries to eight. Mr Summerhays speaks very highly of the progression in the B and C teams this year and this was evident when we played mixed ability teams with Oakwood and produced two excellent performances against their B team.

The U8s have shown some really pleasing development this season in what has been their first set of competitive rugby matches. Playing a mixture of streamed and mixed ability games, everyone got heavily involved and has shown an increased understanding of the rules as well as the skills and tactics required to play well as a team.

Hockey

The hockey season is short but hopefully we can look to increase in the future. That said, the level of progress across all the year groups is really impressive considering the time we have dedicated to hockey.

The senior teams enjoyed some really competitive matches with lots of rotation between the teams. Lots of children improving quickly caused heated competition for places! We were lucky to have a number of quite talented goalkeepers in the school, some of which are very new to goal keeping.

Mr Tyrrell gave a special mention to Ewen M and Orion B for some really brave goal keeping in the matches that he took. Oliver F in his first season in the kit made a huge first impression, proving that he will be one to watch in the future. I would like to give a special well done to Miguel A, who having never played hockey before, worked hard on his keeping and secured himself the first team goal keeper position. He was pushed all the way by Will D and Patrick D, who both performed very well between the posts.

It was bitter sweet for the 1st team this year, playing seven matches, losing just one. Unfortunately that loss was in the IAPS regional qualifier semi-finals. Having qualified out of an incredibly strong group, we then didn’t perform to our level, losing to Windlesham House. Later in the season, we had the opportunity to show Windlesham House how good we really are!

The U11s enjoyed a season similar to their rugby with improvement all the way through to the end. They recorded a number of victories against some really strong schools winning two thirds of school matches. The A team were knocked out in the first final stages of the IAPS regional qualifiers but put in a good display throughout the day.

The U10s enjoyed another excellent season. Mr Geffen headed up the Year 5 hockey teams and was really pleased with their development. At the start of the season we were a bit erratic, but as the season developed, showed good control and were trying to playing in the correct way through all four teams.

Junior hockey was really enjoyable this season although the Year 3s struggled for fixtures. For them it was more about a solid introduction to the game and trying to lay the foundations for next year. This being said we managed some really competitive fixtures with Cranleigh, a really nice mixed festival at home and a fiercely contested inter-patrol event. The Year 4 season was slightly short but I was so impressed with how hard everyone worked and how many of the boys were really trying to implement what we had been doing in our games sessions. The highlight was probably the Highfield U9 hockey festival where we had some great matches, the A squad only losing one out of their seven matches.

Squash

The squash season spans over two terms but our opportunity for competitive fixtures is extremely limited. Even with this, it doesn’t seem to dull the enthusiasm of all the children involved in the squads. The Senior team had a comfortable win away to Lancing College U14s this side of half term.

The inter-patrol squash was probably the highlight of the season for me with all children in the squads, and some others, getting the opportunity to get competitive and try to out do their peers! The level of squash playing was great to watch and everyone approached the matches with great spirit.

Cross Country

In February, the U9-U13 boys and girls travelled to Highfield for their annual cross country competition. This is always a big event with numbers reaching over 70 per race. The pupils were even lucky enough to stumble upon the Olympic gold medalist, Mo Farah!

The top Westbourne runner in the U9 girls’ event was Roxy who came 6th. The U9 team came 3rd overall. The top Westbourne runner in the U10 girls’ event was Safi who came 4th. The U10 team came 2nd overall. The top Westbourne runner in the U11 girls’ event and winner of the silver medal was Lily-Rose. The U11 team came 4th overall. The top Westbourne runner in the U12 girls’ event and winner of the girls’ second silver medal was Willow. The U12 team came 2nd overall. The top Westbourne runner in the U13 girls’ event and winner of yet another silver medal was Fleur. The U13 team came 1st overall.

This was a brilliant event bringing the first half of the term to an end. We entered six boys in each year group race from U9 - U13. With over 70 competitors in some races it was a very competitive event. We had a number of top 10 finishers including Jamie S 6th (Year 4), Rupert G 10th (Year 5), and a superb podium finish by Walter DL (Year 8).

Swimming

Unfortunately we were unable to compete against Seaford as planned in January. However, the swimming team were able to travel to Highfield in February and also competed in the IAPS regionals held at Windlesham. Highfield are always a tough opposition as they have a number of county swimmers in their team. Race winners of the afternoon were:

U9 Freestyle relay team
U10A medley and freestyle relay team
U12A medley relay team
Elsie U9 Back crawl
EJ U9 Butterfly
Jamie U9 Freestyle
Loftus U10 Breaststroke
Coco U12 Breaststroke

The IAPS regionals are a nerve-racking event as the judging is strict and disqualifications can occur. However, I am pleased to report that there were no disqualifications and there were 15 new PBs in the individual events. On top of this Bianca set a new U13 50m Butterfly record with a time of 42.60s and Hetty set a new U11 50m Breaststroke record with a time of 47.92s. We won’t know who has qualified for the finals on Saturday 3rd June until mid April.

The junior and senior inter-patrol swimming galas are always a big event in the Easter term calendar. Every pupil in Y3-Y8 swim their best for their patrol. The winner of the junior inter patrol swimming gala was Tigers with a total of 77 points and the winner of the senior inter patrol swimming gala was Otters with a total score of 130 points.

As always the awards for most improved swimmer and swimmer of the year were presented.