It's been a busy fortnight of sport with Girls' House Hockey, Fives Tournaments and Boys' Football Draft Competition.
Girls' Sport
We have seen a great deal of sport for the girls happen since the last round-up and they have continued their high work rate, enthusiasm and determination to improve regardless that they are not having any external fixtures. It is good to see their competitive spirit in games sessions, House Matches and in high performance training.
We have had another two Inter-House competitions and now internal leagues are happening within sports. A big thank you goes to the staff, who are constantly challenging, motivating and improving the girls’ skills levels. Without them, our programme would not be the success it is.
Year 13 Girls' House Hockey
All of the Houses were well-represented and supported by pupils and House staff alike. Games were set up with an elaborate scoring system that allowed points to be awarded for skill and good play, as well as scoring goals. This created a fantastic environment and the girls added to the occasion with a positive attitude and high work rate.
The games were hard fought with each team winning at least one match in the afternoon. As a result, Fletcherites and Sutton were left tied for second place with 4 points for the afternoon. Chetwynd won their respective year group tournament for the second year running with a tally of nine points. This result is combined with the standings of the Year 12 tournament to calculate the overall House Hockey Champions.
The combined final results are as follows:
1st Sutton
2nd Chetwynd
3rd Fletcherites
Year 13 Girls' House Fives
Tuesday 10 November was a glorious afternoon and provided the right backdrop for the Senior Girls' Inter-House Fives competition. Each house provided three pairs who played six matches each. The standard was high particularly as many had not played for a year. The atmosphere was a credit to the participants as they adopted peculiar courts and odd bounces. After an hour and a half the champions Fletcherites, both in the overall trophy and the best pair (Lola and Hero), were crowned. Both categories were hard fought and very close. Mr Sandbach presented the trophies thanking the boys who ran the tournament as well as Mrs Edwards who provided the organisation while recovering at home from an Achilles operation.
Final results:
1st Fletcherites
2nd Chetwynd
3rd Sutton
Year 12 Girls' Internal Hockey Series
Saturday 9 November, saw the commencement of a three match series between the Hurricanes and Stormers. The two sides have been created by mixing all ability levels together to create a fantastic contest for all involved and the first game of the series did not disappoint. Despite good link ups between Emma, Hattie and Camilla down the Stormers’ right wing, the first period produced a tight contest with the score line remaining tied. Ela and Kandy made big impacts at the back for the Hurricanes and Stormers respectively and were huge contributors to the 0-0 score line. However, during the second period the Stormers capitalised on playing into the empty net and built up a 2-0 lead. It was decided that the game would be played as a cup final and a result was needed. This was to encourage game management from both teams and challenge their ability to solve problems on the pitch. A challenge that the Hurricanes accepted. High intensity play by Laura, Pippa, Emma and Catie through the midfield kept up relentless pressure on the Stormers’ defence. This brought the scores back to 2-2 with five minutes to play. It was an end to end affair as both teams pushed for the win. In the end a well-crafted counter attack involving Ellis, Emma and Camilla resulted in the ball beating Susie “the wall” for the first time in the afternoon.
This has put the Stormers into a 1-0 series lead in a best of three contest. There are medals and chocolates to play for, so I know the girls will be determined to get the win.
Mr Ellis-Woodley and Ms Gordon-Martin were extremely impressed by the quality on show. It is clear that the girls have made tremendous progress so far this term.
Players of the match went to:
Stormers
Kandy
Jessica
Hurricanes
Laura
Pip
Honourable mention goes to Jemima for taking a huge blow to the foot but playing on regardless!
Year 12 and 13 Girls' Football Tournament
Over the next couple of weeks, the girls are going to be battling it out to take the champions trophy in a five a side tournament within their year groups. With several games to be played for each team, the winner could be anyone. In the next round up, we will know the eventual winners, so watch this space.
Boys' Football Draft Competition
Charterhouse has launched its first ever draft football competition. After the success of the House Football tournament, something new was needed and it has been a roaring success in the first week with many competitive matches being played already.
We grouped a whole year group into the football teams that pupils have represented the School in, so we had an ‘academy’ group, an F team group, an E team group and so on up to the A team. For new Sixth Form pupils who had not played football for the School or the odd pupil who had not participated in much football we also had a ‘Wild Card’ group where necessary.
How the draw was conducted
Pupils were colour coded by House and displayed in their school teams on a big TV screen.
Captains were instructed that they needed to select one player from each House in the Under School into their squad. With the Sixth Form tournament being eight versus eight, they could not select one from each House but instead had a maximum limit of three players per House. Captains had to select all of the academy group and wild card group before they could select from the F team, all F team players had to be selected before E team players could be picked, and so on. The draft worked in a zig-zag format so picking 1st meant also picking 16th and 17th, while picking 8th meant picking 9th. This was to stop the same team having the first pick in every round and creating an imbalance in the squads.
How the competition will work
From Year 10 to Year 13 we have tournaments with eight teams. We have eight dates to play. In a league format everyone will play everyone once, taking up seven dates. On Finals Day we will have a semi-final and final back to back (shorter matches) with the top four teams playing in a Cup competition and the bottom four teams playing in a Plate competition. 1 vs 4 & 2 vs 3 in the cup semi-finals. 5 vs 8 and 6 vs 7 in the plate semi-finals.
In Year 9 we have a 10 team tournament. They are playing shorter matches of 20 minutes duration but playing three league matches per day. Across six league dates they will play 18 matches and this will allow everyone to play everyone twice in their league. They then have two dates spare for a semi-final day and a final day. The top four will go into the Cup and the bottom six teams will play in the plate.
With House Football now over, other sports are beginning to come into their own with really encouraging participation and attendance levels. In the Queen's Sports Centre (QSC), we’ve seen some healthy numbers in basketball, badminton, swimming, fencing and climbing. Basketball team training in year group bubbles has certainly had a great buzz around it. This variety is essential to allow pupils to explore a sport in which they feel confident and comfortable doing. Outside the QSC, squash, fives and rackets continue to bring pupils in and it has been fantastic to see some Year 9 pupils having the opportunity to try something different. Moreover, indoor cricket sessions have started up for certain pupils and it is great to see them working on the technical and tactical elements of their game at this point in the year.
Our Charterhouse Athlete Programme continues to go from strength to strength and the benefits these pupils are getting from their regular Strength and Conditioning sessions is clear to see. This has certainly been a real highlight of the term with so many talented athletes exposed to quality training given to them.
