Friday saw the annual Junior swimming gala at Northbrook Swimming pool. All pupils in year 2, 3 and 4 have the opportunity to put into practice the skills that have been learning in swimming lesson. The focus of swimming lessons during the lent term are on competition skills. Pupils learn how to safely change over in a relay where timing and patience is so important to avoid a disqualification as well as how to start and finish races properly. These skills build on the good technique that pupils focus on during the rest of the academic year.
It was impressive to see how much had been learnt and remembered; every race started cleanly with all pupils responding correctly to the starters whistle and relay change overs were all patiently waited for. A truly excellent display from our junior swimmers!
Weather your child is one of those who had been looking forward to the swimming gala or one of those who really didn’t want to swim but steeled themselves anyway, every child has a lot to be proud of. Every child completed their race, always to cheers and encouragement of the rest of their team. With so many exceptional performances is it difficult single our a few to be mentioned. I would like to congratulate the three, brave, year 2s who stepped up to compete in year 3 races when a member of year 3 was ill. George, Adam and Milo all rose to the occasion, far from being intimidated by the situation they were keen to prove their acumen against the older children. During the course of the afternoon three school records were broken – Ben T took the Y3 Breaststroke record (taking the record from his Brother!), Elizabeth E the Y4 Breaststroke record and Hetty T the Y4 Front Crawl record. The future of ECS swimming is looking very bright.
The winners of all the races are as follows:
Year 2 Front Crawl (a) – Jude
Year 2 Front Crawl (b) – Olivia
Year 2 Front Crawl (c) – Sophia
Year 2 Front Crawl (d) – Jemima
Year 2 Front Crawl (e) – Lola
Year 2 Front Crawl (f) – Guy
Year 2 Front Crawl (g) – Ting
Year 3 Front Crawl (a) – Ben
Year 3 Front Crawl (b) – Zhi
Year 3 Back Crawl – Gryiffin
Year 3 Breaststroke – Ben
Year 4 Front Crawl (a) – Hetty
Year 4 Front Crawl (b) – Herbert
Year 4 Front Crawl (c) – Freddie
Year 4 Front Crawl (d)- Hugo
Year 4 Back Crawl – Harry
Year 4 Breaststroke (a) – Elizabeth
Year 4 Breaststroke (b) – Anna
Year 2 Back Crawl (a) – Jude
Year 2 Back Crawl (b) – George
Year 2 Back Crawl (c) – Sophie
Year 2 Back Crawl (d) – Grace
Year 2 Back Crawl (e) – Lola
Year 2 Back Crawl (f) – Rufus
Year 2 Back Crawl (g) – Jasmin
Medley Relay – Stapledon
Front Crawl Relay Y3 – Stapledon
Free Style Relay Y4 (a) – Stapledon
Free Style Relay Y4 (b) – Stapledon
The points were very close but at the end of the afternoon, following from some excellent relay swims, Stapledon were the year 3 and 4 winners and the Yellow team had won for the year 2s. Huge thanks should go to all the form tutors who come, and worked so hard during the afternoon to make sure everything ran like clock-work. Congratulations to all.
Miss Noble
Swimming Teacher
