This week’s blog has been written by Mr Payne, Director of Sport at Bethany School. He writes about this term being outstanding for sports at Bethany, with high levels of participation across football, hockey, swimming, and PE activities.

Already this term pupils have shown great enthusiasm, camaraderie, and skill development, achieving notable results in fixtures and competitions while embracing a range of physical activities and academic sport studies.

I am very pleased to report we have steered clear of any ‘club v country’ conflicts, and quite the opposite in fact, with pupils incredibly keen, enthusiastic, committed and wanting to be involved in school team sports.

The U13 football team have played a challenging fixture card and performed with improving levels week in week out with an average of fifty pupils involved in match days across four teams.

The U13 hockey teams have competed very well in their fixture card, again seeing amazing numbers with three teams of twenty five pupils representing the school on various match days.

The inter level teams have not let the side down either with regular fixtures and some very competitive results. Two large football squads and a hockey squad has resulted in a very healthy percentage involved in match day sport.

The seniors have also represented the school with good numbers involved, and the 1st and 2nd XI football teams have achieved some notable results along with the 1st XI hockey team.

In addition, the Junior Girls’ football team have trained weekly and continue to progress key skill levels alongside playing matches for the first time against Farrington’s School – with Kings School, Rochester to come next Monday.

The swimming squad continue to train weekly and with the gala season getting underway, the girls’ squad performed superbly well against Sevenoaks School and Mayfield School this week, with the big highlight being an incredible first place finish for the U15 Medley relay team against high calibre opposition.

The winner has certainly been participation levels this term across a range of sports, which is fantastic to see. The comradery between players and the enjoyment level, alongside some competitiveness of course, has been some of the best I have witnessed in my time at Bethany.

We look forward to continued high levels of participation and further success in the spring term when the boys switch to hockey and girls will play netball, along with more junior girls football matches and swimming galas.

Outside of sports teams participation, all pupils have been very active in their PE programme, learning climbing wall skills, gym fitness training techniques and racket skills in badminton amongst other activities.

The exam groups continue to forge a path to success with studying academic sport areas alongside filming practical performance in a range of skill and competitive scenarios for their moderation assessment.

A fantastic and busy sporting term to date with plenty of success and much more to come!

Mr Payne
Director of Sport