Sandal Castle VA Community Primary School

‘Together we grow: Together we give’. Ezekiel 47:2

We are a school community and we are a family. We learn together, we support each other, we give our time, our kindness, our love and our compassion to those around us in our school and wider community. We help each other to be ourselves and to be proud of it and to grow in to the unique individuals we are, and as a result, we grow into the respectful and accepting community we all value so much- we are there for each other on each step of our journey.

Sports Council and Sports Leaders

Sports Fortnight

Our fantastic Sports Leaders and Sports Council will be facilitating the events taking place during our Summer Sports fortnight.

Underlying values of the fortnight:

The theme of the fortnight is women in sport with a particular focus on the women’s world cup, which is currently taking place. Teams on sports days are going to be themed around this, with each team being assigned one of the following countries:

Cross Curricular Work for the Fortnight

We are going to be releasing a special sports edition of the school newspaper:

• Individual report about a sporting event during the fortnight/ a particular issue of interest
• Whole-class written piece/mind-map
• Individual/whole-class artwork
• Fact files
• Staff/pupil interviews
• Book reviews (from cross-curricular library)

Potential case studies/issues to spark interest

• Women’s world cup – Ballon d’Or Winner Ada Hegelberg quitting international football due to how female footballers are being treated in Norway. This has since seen the Norwegian FA double the pay of the international women’s team but Hegelberg is sticking by her principles and refusing to play. https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2019/0605/1053706-ballon-dor-winner-hegerberg-stands-over-norway-boycott/
• The previous case study is an effective way into studying any of the great social activists/movements, specifically thinking suffragettes. A comparison piece could be written to look at similarities/differences between Hegelberg and others.
• Equality and diversity – should women be paid as much as men in sport? Could explore the commercial aspects and prize money taken. Wimbledon now pays men and women equal prize money after many years of campaigning.
• Olympics/athletics and gender. Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya filed an appeal against the IAAF’s ruling to restrict testosterone levels in female runners. She is appealing to Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court after losing her case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The new rule would require her to take testosterone-reducing medicine to compete at distances between 800m and a mile or change to another distance.

Sports Council

At Sandal Castle, we are always listening, taking on board children’s thoughts, views and wishes on how we can drive our school forward to improve. This was especially important in PE, as all of our children show a huge enthusiasm and love of sport, swimming and PE. Therefore, gathering their views on how we can develop our provision further is vital in continuing to grow a love of PE, at our school, as well as promote the importance of a healthy lifestyle.

We have recently elected our very own sports council; each class voted for councillors they felt could represent their classes’ and individual views of PE in school well and confidently express the importance of exercise in and out of school. Leaders also ensure they represent school and their class incredibly well; showing outstanding attributes, which reflect their ‘role model’ status.

Sports Leaders

Sports leaders demonstrate positive sporting characteristics, which enable them to become successful leaders. They continuously exhibit a keen understanding of sports, effective coaching and important skills and rules to lead specific sports / games. Most importantly, a sports leader must communicate successfully, motivate, encourage and appreciate their performers.

These elements are consistently shown by our year 5 and 6 pupils, who have applied, explained and undergone training in order to qualify as a Sandal Castle Sports Leader.

Our children are always learning and trying hard to support others achieve and develop their sporting ability as well as encourage them to live a healthy lifestyle. Children thrive in this role and love to take charge in leading a variety of activities in lessons; at break and lunchtimes as well as after school (which also involves competitions or tournaments).

“Being a sports leader was a fantastic opportunity for me to do something brilliant! I learnt so much about myself and it helped develop my confidence.” Joshua Shea-Jackson

“Refereeing and being a sports leaders was a great experience and now I know how hard it is to take on these kinds of roles.” Benjamin Roberts

Health and Well-being focus

Year 5 have walked the distance from John O’Groats to Land’s End over the last two weeks. We needed a total of 1407km but we actually surpassed this with a total of 1595.76km!

Our walking challenge began in order to help us to improve our daily fitness and stamina and to demonstrate that anyone can find an exercise that suits them and that is easy to pick up, no matter how talented or confident we are at sport.

However, we quickly realised that walking was a fantastic way of improving our mood and mental health outlook. When walking, we developed strategies for taking control of our mood and distracting ourselves from our worries. Our sense of achievement and improvement in mood have made us raring for our next walking challenge!