Sports

Sports

The idea that education should be enjoyable is central to our school ethos. Thus, sport plays an important role in our curriculum. It teaches our pupils how to win with modesty and lose with dignity; how to lead others by example, or how to be led with respect; how to learn from mistakes; how to be part of a team. To add to this, there are the obvious health benefits of being an active person and having an outlet to cope with the pressures of work both at school and in later life.

We believe that every pupil should learn the basics of physical movement and games. This is developed within school-time Physical Education and swimming sessions. More is learnt at after-school sports clubs and there are dedicated squads for all of our major sports – football, basketball, cricket, swimming and athletics – at the Senior School. At the Junior School there are squads for swimming, athletics and basketball and clubs for mini tennis, football and cricket.

We sometimes compete against schools with ten times the number of students we have. Often we reach semi-finals in the official Inter International Schools tournaments and win smaller events. This is character building; we need to train harder and be smarter than bigger schools; we need greater planning and more teamwork; we need the most committed coaches and supporters. All of this builds enormous school spirit.

We vow to remain a small school; sport is one of many examples of why this is an advantage. Every single student has a realistic chance of representing our school. Take, for example, an ex-student who was deemed to be too physically awkward to even participate in PE classes at his former school. Within two years he was scoring the winning basket for us, in Hollywood style, in the final second of a crucial quarter-final.

Much of our talent is home grown developed rather than acquired. Our best sportspeople are approachable; we demand of them a responsibility to other students less talented than themselves. This means one pupil’s greatest rival is also his or her greatest fan.

Should you be an especially talented and hard-working sportsperson who can meet our academic requirements, there is a possibility you could win a scholarship to study at the school. We would expect you to devote your talents to helping to teach others the greatest values of sport.