St Mary's School Sports Day
Report and photos from Len Street
On Monday 24th April 2017 Students of Nightingale and Inaccessible houses, the two houses of the islands only school took part in a hard fought and well supported sports day.
Creating a fun, fair and competitive event in which all students can participate is no easy challenge in a small school such as ours, with children of different ages and differing levels of sporting prowess. But it was a challenge that as the games teacher I was keen to take up. Besides, practicing the various events sorted out much of my planning for our PE/Games lessons leading up to the main event!
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| Hanging tough. | Throwing the javelin. |
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| Champions Nightingale House. | Inaccessible House students put on a brave face. |
The sports Day consisted of three phases and all students to take part on the day.
Phase one took part inside that main hall, and was for younger competitors (classes 1 and 2), It included two events. The first event 'Olympic rings' involved students attempting to land bean bags into different colour rings placed at increasing distances, the further the distance the more points they received for their house. The second event was a game of skittles with each student having two attempts to knock their skittles down.
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Phase two saw activities move outside onto the school field where the older students (classes 3 to 5) took up the show. The third activity entitled 'Runner/Chaser' was basically handicapped sprinting, with the faster student having to sprint 30 metres the slower student 25 meters. The handicapped element made for some interesting contests. The fourth event was 'Javelin' and again like the sprinting some of these contest had a handicapped element combining one or more throws. The final activity made use of the old metal frame from which swings used to hang; well you have to make do on the world's most remote island! The event was called 'Hang Tough' and students had to literally see who could hang on for the longest in carefully planned match-ups against each other. Phase three was a team game of football rounder's consisting of 10 players a side with each innings lasting a maximum of 10 minutes. At the end of a highly enjoyable, highly entertaining afternoon for all, it was Nightingale who triumphed 46-43 over Inaccessible. Left: Jade Repetto with the cup. |