Balfour Junior School PE Newsletter April 2013

Balfour Junior School PE Newsletter – April 2013

The PE Co-ordinators would like take this opportunity to say well done, and share some of the excellent achievements and activities the pupils have been involved in so far this year. From now on we will produce a PE newsletter at the end of each term to keep you updated with what is going on in and out of school.

What we do in school

We are very proud of the PE that we have available in our school and the range of activities and equipment that we can offer the children. We are very lucky to have close links with Greenacre Secondary School as they aid us in providing high quality PE in our school. They supply us with equipment, training and support wherever we need it. They have sent in PE specialists this term to teach and deliver Volleyball and fitness to some Year 4 and 5 classes and have also helped train some staff in teaching Handball, which will be introduced to the curriculum in September.

As a child grows up, he or she will likely be drawn to participate in sports. But not all children will be interested in or successful at every sports experience. Some children are more inclined to team sports while others will prefer individual sports. This is why at Balfour we try to expose children to as many activities as possible to ensure they have the chance to find a sport they enjoy. We currently offer 20 different activities to the children throughout their time at Balfour and hope to increase this further.

Sports Crew training

Well done to the 20 Year 5 children who have successfully completed their Sports Crew Training. After Easter they will be on the playground at lunchtimes, in which they will organise games and activities that the other pupils can join in with and therefore be more active.

Extra-Curricular Clubs

Below is a table that shows what clubs are currently available, what teachers run them, what pupils can attend and whether there are spaces available.

For information regarding these clubs please see the teacher running it or Mr Kirk.

Competitions

Congratulations to the school Football team who recently reached the Semi-Final of the Primary Football League. They finished runners up in their league, in which they won 5 out of their 6 games. They played Maundene in the semi-final but unfortunately lost 6-2. They will play their final game this week against last year’s finalists, Kingfisher, in the 3/4 place playoff at Greenacre School.

Mini Youth Games

The Mini Youth Games (MYG) is an annual programme that involves more than 2,500 primary school children in a series of inter-school competitions.

Open to every primary school child in Medway, the MYG is an exciting opportunity for children to experience the thrill of friendly, competitive sport, to learn new skills and develop a sense of fair play.

Prizes are awarded at each event and points are gained towards the overall MYG title. A fair play trophy is awarded at each event, and there is an annual participation prize for the school that selects the largest number of children to take part in MYG events.

The MYG in 2011/12 was won by St Margaret's Junior School in Rainham. The overall series Fair Play winners wereHoo St WerburghPrimary School. The Participation Award went toParkwood Primary School whileWainscott PrimarySchool was the Best Placed Small School.

We at Balfour have a good record at the MYG and in 2011/12 we finished 4th in the Overall series and was 2nd in the Highest Participation Award. This shows we are both competitive and select a wide range of children in our teams. Taking into consideration that there are over 40 schoolsthat compete in this series, this is a very impressive result.

2012/13 MYG

This year’s MYG series has so far been a very exciting and successful one. We started way back in September where our Hockey team competed at Holcombe Hockey club and finished in an impressive 6th position. This was followed by another good performance in Rugby where we also finished in 6th place. Badminton wasn’t as successful for us as we finished down in 21st position, but we did have a number of Year 5 pupils in our team so things are looking good for next year. Swimming was next and considering we don’t have our own pool we performed very well and finished in 10th position. After swimming Balfour were standing in 9th place overall. Not bad.

A new event was introduced into this year’s MYG series and this proved lucky for us. This was the first time Balfour had competed in Basketball for 8 years and we had obviously been ready for it. Our team won all 8 games on the day and finished in 1st position out of 36 schools. The only school not to lose a game all day. Well done. Our success continued into the next event, Table Tennis. Again, the team went unbeaten. Winning 7 out of 8 games and drawing 1. As we had the same points as Hempstead (current Overall leaders) it went on individual games won. This was also identical. So it went down to individual points won and unfortunately they had 5 more points. But nonetheless an outstanding 2nd place finish. Two events where we failed to lose a game.

Our most recent event was Netball. Not one of our most successful events in the past as last year we finished 21st so we wanted to improve on this. Our team won all 4 games in the morning, some close and some not so close. 9-0 being our biggest win. In the afternoon we played some trickier schools and managed to win 3 and draw 1 against Elaine. Which meant for the third event in a row we had gone all competition unbeaten and finished in 2nd position. Our best Netball result in over 6 years.

With only 3 events left in this year’s calendar we are currently in 2nd position overall, just a few points behind Hempstead. Football, Cricket and Athletics are usually strong events for us and if we perform like we have in previous years we have a great chance in winning the overall series. Come on Balfour!

Sainsbury Vouchers

Please keep sending in your Sainsbury vouchers as we use these to purchase PE equipment to be used in lessons. We really appreciate your effort in sending these in and all the children benefit from them. Over the years they have been used to purchase some great pieces of equipment including netball posts, football goals and many other items that without these vouchers, we would not have.

I would like to end this newsletter by saying a massive thank you for your continued support as without you, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.

Thank You

PE Co-Ordinators

Mr Kirk/ Mr Williams