Sport

SPORT AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Thank you for your continued support towards everything Sport and Physical Education this year. It has been a difficult time as we have continued to navigate our sporting provision, curriculum and sports teams across all the year groups in the school. We have started, stopped and thankfully now, are slowly resuming to some normality, albeit under certain restrictions. Your support and trust has been pivotal in ensuring that Harrow Bangkok Sport and Physical Education continues to grow and develop.

Our team of teachers, academy coaches and outside providers have been brilliant this year, working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure we have been able to offer greater opportunities and increased sporting chances to represent our school, learn new skills and most importantly, rediscover a love for getting physically active and healthy. Our parents also play a huge part in this culture and we hope that through our upcoming ‘Passion4Sport initiative’, you will also soon enjoy the benefits of using some of our excellent facilities and expert staff coaching.

While our competitions and fixtures may have been limited this year, our focus has shifted to our internal development. We have explored the question of ‘What makes Harrow Bangkok sport unique?’ I will also be presenting the Harrow Bangkok Sport DNA model early next year during parent workshops. Your feedback and support is always welcome! Harrow Bangkok has been at the forefront of developing sport within Bangkok, our wider community and across South East Asia. As a result, there will be changes next year. Our normal sporting tournament organisation, BISAC, will no longer exist. Instead, we have jointly created a new league with other British schools in Bangkok; British International Schools Association (BISA). Our new organisation will ensure our British values and sporting passions are both accessible for more students, more Lower School focused, with increased opportunities and differing sports.

This year, I have been immensely proud of all of our teams, including training and social sports teams. Our students continue to challenge for the greatest honours, work tirelessly and represent the school. We Are Harrow Bangkok!

This year has been filled with great achievements and opportunities for our young athletes during Lower School curriculum Physical Education. The start of the year saw our students returning to school with much enthusiasm and pride as they looked forward to an action-packed curriculum, learning new skills, new sports and new initiatives. Over the year, our committed Physical Education staff have relished the opportunity to observe the students develop their physical fitness, practical skills and leadership qualities.

Our Physical Education curriculum is all about our students and how best to further their learning experiences. The start of the year saw a host of new sports added to make sure the diverse development of our students is at the centre of all we do. New sports such as touch rugby, netball, hockey and handball have been introduced to inspire our students to develop their knowledge and skills in a wider variety of competitive sports. The use of High Performance Learning strategies is now becoming a major part of the learning experience in Physical Education lessons on a daily basis. This continues to extend each student’s understanding and equip them with the knowledge to gain a more in-depth understanding of how we improve our team’s performance.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the Lower School Physical Education staff for their work throughout what has been a challenging year. Their energy, flexibility, knowledge and skills provide the foundation on which we are able to build the curriculum and provide the opportunities for learning that students at Harrow Bangkok enjoy so much. As always, your unwavering support has been admirable and I cannot wait for the day we can all be back in school enjoying our fantastic House days together.

SPORT AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

We are so glad to be back in school to see students enjoying physical activity with huge smiles on their faces. When we returned to normal face-toface classes, we focused on developing sport specific motor skills but also promoted high levels of collaboration, creativity and competition, which were sorely missed during online learning for Physical Education.

At the start of the year, Prep students learned about a new activity called Orienteering, where they developed map reading skills in order to find information placed all over the expansive sports fields and facilities. The students showed a competitive spirit with their fitness being tested, simultaneously learning about GCSE content including muscle and bone locations. During the hottest season, we expanded our delivery of Trampolining and Table Tennis to more classes, including Years 7, 8 and 9 students, due to some classes missing this during the first period of online learning. At the end of this academic year, we had the first cohort of Sports Leaders Level 3 students complete their qualification despite the many challenges of online learning. Students worked together to plan, deliver and evaluate sports events and developed skills in organisation, communication and teamwork. The completion of the Level 3 qualification will also assist them with university applications as it holds weight in terms of UCAS points for Year 13 students. There have also been record numbers of Level 2 Sports Leaders certified this year, an opportunity that takes place within SR5 Physical Education lessons. Well done to all students completing a Sports Leadership course this academic year. We hope to see you demonstrating these refined skills across the school.

FOOTBALL

ACADEMY

The Football Academy has had a productive year considering all the uncertainty around COVID-19. Our year started off with Varsity Girls winning BISAC, also finishing a close 2nd in the revamped SEASCA tournament. November was bursting with tournaments, with U10 & U15s playing in the Bulldog Cup, as well as the Harrow Bangkok Youth Cup taking place at the end of the month. A positive Harrow Bangkok Primary 7s made its debut; an innovative event aimed at giving students who don’t normally play in tournaments the opportunity to perform in a relaxed atmosphere where no scores were recorded.

March was an exciting month with another Q&A, this time with Leicester City goalkeeper and captain Kasper Schmeichel. The largest Leicester City Zoom Q&A audience of 116 students Harrow Bangkok students, learnt first-hand what it takes to become a professional football player and were given an honest insight into the life of Kasper Schmeichel.

April was bursting with tournaments hosted by Bangkok Prep, followed with three demanding tournaments in May, one of them being our popular Festival 7s. To finish off an eventful year, we hosted two tournaments in June, with U7s playing in a 3v3 and 5v5 tournament, as well as a second Primary 7s.

Looking back over the year, I am overjoyed to observe our students being given the opportunity to get back to playing team sports in an on-off year. I would personally like to thank all the students and coaches involved in the football academy for the sweat and determination they have shown during the past year. It is great to see them develop as individuals and grow in confidence.

GOLF

ACADEMY

In Bangkok, school golf is continuing to grow rapidly with more and more schools hosting ‘International School Golf Tour’ (ISGT) events. It is fantastic to be able to give our dedicated golfers more opportunities to showcase their masterful skills, develop new friendships and compete against some of the best golfers in Thailand.

The Harrow Bangkok Golf Academy enables students of all abilities to practise with a purpose and to play with passion and enjoyment. Our team of dedicated professionals have been superb in coaching, modelling and supporting each and every student in their development journey during this academic year. The performance of the Development Team this year has been superb, with more students transitioning to both SIM and on course practice and regularly joining competitions.

Although the golf calendar has been compressed due to global circumstances, we have been extremely fortunate to be able to compete and practice on a regular basis. Our students have taken full advantage of this opportunity and have all performed superbly throughout the course of the year at both ISGT and Faldo series events.

The three Faldo Series events: Pattaya, Hua Hin and Kabin Buri, which is hosted by Harrow Bangkok, run separately over the course of the year and sees students compete over three days. No easy feat for our Elite and Development teams. At the first two series events, our team demonstrated huge amounts of concentration, determination, composure, resilience and camaraderie to overcome difficult conditions and tough competition. It has been fantastic to see so many of our Development Team thrive at these prestigious tournaments, alongside our elite golfers. It has also been a pleasure to welcome more and more boarders into the Golf Academy, who have shown an excellent commitment to refining and developing their skills.

Golf at Harrow Bangkok is available to everyone. All areas of the game are covered including competitions, course management, analysis, technical training, sports psychology and fitness. All parents are welcome to join the Harrow Bangkok Community Golf day or to come along and join one of our Parent Golf mornings, where you have the opportunity to receive expert coaching, challenge our Pros to a virtual game, the long drive competition or just play against your friends. So whether you play on a regular basis or have never played before, there is a pathway for you and you are always more than welcome to come and give it a go.

TENNIS

ACADEMY

We got off to a wonderful start to the year with our U15 season winning the singles event in both Boys and Girls categories. The invitational doubles event hosted two age groups, U13 and U15, to kick start the year and get students into the flow of competing against different schools. Harrow Bangkok Boys performed impressively, winning both U13 and U15 categories, with Harrow Bangkok Girls claiming the runners up trophy. The Team event concluded the season with the Girls Team taking 1st place and a weakened Boys team still managing to impressively take home 3rd place.

Leading toward the Christmas break, the U9 and U11 Academy players had their chance to showcase their skills in the Orange and Green ball events. This is proving to be a great platform for our new up and coming students to express themselves in match play, as they learn how to score themselves and play without the pressure of winning and losing; the goal being an emphasis on the element of fun.

Season 3 managed to side step away from online learning and the U13 season was back in full swing. We have had friendlies and a BISAC singles event leading the students to prepare for our main Team event. A young Girls team and 3 Boys teams will engage in the heat of battle this weekend.

I am sure many have seen we have added two new members to our coaching team, who have been superb additions. Their experience and expertise will be valuable to move our program onto the next level.

It is encouraging to see all the individual challenges we have faced and how we are continuing to grow and develop. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the parents for their continued support for the Harrow Bangkok Tennis Academy.

GYMNASTIC

ACADEMY

Our Gymnastic provision goes from strength to strength.

Starting with the Parents open skills day, the Academy opened its doors for observers to learn more about Gymnastics, the expectations set and to also attempt some of the skills themselves. This was the foundation of building the team, and also had the effect of strengthening our community, just in time for the start of the competition season.

On Saturday 31st October, we held the first ever ‘Born to Shine’ tournament, specifically designed to encourage success and recognition at the development level. It was a great initiative for Harrow Bangkok to create, and was especially rewarding to see the younger athletes learn new skills, improve performance and celebrate their achievements.

At our first big competition, FOBISIA, we went home with 39 IA medals, 8 AA and 5 T trophies (17 golds in total). At this stage, we had started to create more All-Around Gymnasts, showing our consistency within all skill areas. Most recently at the Falcons championships, we took the plunge, entered new teams, and progressed Gymnasts to higher levels. We had one of the biggest teams with the youngest athletes and a grand total of 61 competitors. Walking away with 64 IA medals, 9 AA and 9 T trophies (30 golds in total), we were bursting with pride!

SWIMMING

ACADEMY

It is pleasing to know our programme continues to be successful and our refined technique is being recognised. With a real commitment towards improving apparatus technique, skill set and self-confidence, I would like to take the time to congratulate all of our squads, as well as the whole coaching team and parents for their continued support.

Despite facing a difficult year, the Swimming Academy certainly rose to the challenge and adapted together to continue participating in a sport they love.

The year began with the long awaited return to the Harrow Bangkok swimming pool. After 2 months of dedicated training, the team attended their first competition of the year, ‘Bulldog Dash’. The team achieved 2nd overall in Team Scores, an excellent result for our first competition of the year! Shortly after, 10 of our performance swimmers qualified for Thai Nationals 2020, attaining an incredible 9 medals throughout the championships.

November saw our development swimmers attend ‘Puppy Cup’, where the team of young swimmers achieved 4th overall as well as a number of new personal bests! Our performance swimmers were also busy in November with ‘Trick or Treat 2020’, achieving an impressive medal haul of 46 medals; a whopping 13 more than our previous 2019 achievement. At the start of 2021, our senior performance swimmers took part in the virtual SEASAC Senior competition. The results were very positive, building upon our previous SEASAC achievements whilst also attaining two individual trophies. In April, a team of 54 swimmers from across the Swimming Academy participated in the Brighton Festival of Swimming. Overall, the team finished in 2nd place whilst also achieving an impressive 8 individual trophies from our youngest swimmers all the way up to our most senior competitors.

It is encouraging to see that even with the challenges our team has faced this year, we have continued to develop in both our participation and competitive success. We would like to congratulate all of our swimmers and thank the coaching team and parents for their continued support.