KS1 Borough Sports

The last competition of the year happened on Friday the 1st July. Team Hamstel had been working and training hard and a team of 20 were selected to compete at the Borough Sports. The events were all relays so change over practice was vital for the team to perform well. After a brisk walk up to Garons Park, led by Mrs Walker, the team were warmed up and ready to go.

There were 14 other schools ready to compete, this meant the competition would work as 2 heats for each event and the top 4 finishers would qualify for the final. Most of the races were relays where teams of 5 would each do 20m along the track. The first race was the skipping relay and the girl’s team led the way. They started with a few nerves and tangles of the skipping rope but the girls pushed through to finish 4th and to get the all-important final heat. The boys race was next and the boys didn’t show any nerves cruising through comfortably in first place. The final took place straight after the boys’ heat and the girls corrected the mistakes from the heats. Khadijah set the team off with a smooth change over to Lottie and a fast leg from Lottie kept Hamstel at the front of the race.

Next came Sophie who powered to Ruby neck and neck with the leaders and Ruby passed to Sophia to cross the line just in 3rd place, a massive improvement from the heats. The boys were up next in their final, Ace went off flying, passing over to Lewi whose practice paid off and who passed to Albert to gain first place. Albert set off flying but just metres from Amir tripped and took a heavy fall. Bravely Albert got up and passed the rope to Amir who quickly closed the gap and passed to Harvey who battled to the line to finish 3rd. Unfortunate for the boys as they were the fastest team but great team work and resilience to not give up even after a fall. Well done Albert for keeping going! Next up was the sprint relay, the girls team were slightly slow on one change over and finished 6th in their heat and missed out on a final place. This showed the important of the fast change overs we had been practicing and the boys made no mistakes in making their final and finished 4th. A bit of a change of pace in the next 2 events with a Space hopper relay and Egg and Spoon relay. The girls in the Space Hopper relay; Evelyn, Phoebe, Elsie, Saganna and Ruby, led by example and won their heat with time to spare. The boys, Jaden, Jan, Stanley, Orlando and Kamari, not to be out done displayed an equally dominate performance to make their final. The children showed no pressure in the final and both teams claimed a convincing victory making it clear that Team Hamstel were the Space Hopper champions! The Egg and Spoon proved difficult in windy conditions but both the boys and girls qualified for the final helping to build the teams points total overall. In the final it seemed even harder to keep the egg on the spoon but both teams worked hard to finish as quickly as possible.

The final race of the day was the very exciting 10 x 70m race. Every child in the team had to run 70m in the relay with the team split at either end of the track. The girls yet again did brilliantly, smooth change overs and fast running helped them qualify for the final and the boys like they had all afternoon followed with another fantastic performance to also book their final place. The girl’s final was very tense, the team worked well together with everyone giving 100% to help them to cross the line in a very close 4th place. The boy’s final didn’t go quite as smoothly with a baton drop, which had never happened in training, but the team powered on. Speedy running from the boys left Ace the last leg to try and take 3rd spot, he closed the gap, nevertheless it was just not to be and came 4th place by a hair. The final thing to do was to find out the results. With so much racing and so many events it was hard to keep track of how the points would have added up. Mr Sayer was feeling confident but Mrs Walker wasn’t so sure. The result started at 14 and slowly as each team got read out the team realised it was going to be close. Finally, Mr Edwards read out Hamstel in 3rd place, a great performance from all involved.

Well done Team Hamstel, you showed amazing effort and such dedication to achieve a fantastic result!

Another fabulous trophy to proudly add to the impressive display cabinet at school!