School sport and sports leaders news

Combat Sports

Year 7 boys are now taking part in wrestling and fencing led by coaches Trevor Hoskins and Sally Peat, along with year 7 and 8 groups taking part in Judo with coach Andy. Students have made a good start to these courses over the last week and shown great enthusiasm in experiencing different sporting opportunities.

Voice of Sport

Our 2021-22 voice of sport group met last Friday.

Students contributed to the smooth running of the meeting and, as ever, suggestions were made to enhance PE and school sport.

Internal verification assessments

Year 12 and 13 level 3 Internal Verification assessment took place on 5 November with students from Castle View Primary School. The year 5 students were engaged in handball, netball, football, basketball and fitness.

Our level 3 sports leaders were given feedback on their performance by the staff from Castle View who awarded high praise to our students, they had the young students highly engaged in the activities and were very professional throughout.

Today, (12 November) our year 11 sports leaders led students from St Joseph’s and Castle View primaries for their level 2 Internal Verification. Full details will feature in next week’s newsletter.

KS1 Ball Skills Day

We held the KS1 ball skills day at Highfields on 9 November – what a fantastic effort from all seven schools who took part during the morning and afternoon sessions. Students were represented from Lea, Wessington, Winster, St Giles, South Darley, Darley Dale and Elton primaries. Unfortunately, Tansley and Castle View were unable to attend the event.

The 47 Highfields Academy sports leaders from years 7-10 were brilliant and received many positive comments from the visiting staff (which is always nice to hear) - all feedback was passed onto the students in the debrief session.

Our sports leaders led eight different stations with a variety of ball skill activities and fundamental movement skills.

Sixth form leader, Hettie, came for the morning session on the admin desk, fab as ever! Plus she even had time to slot in the 20sec video regarding her journey over Covid and leading girls. Hettie has been shortlisted for a Girls Active Award 2021 - we will find out the outcome of this on 23 November at the Virtual Awards evening.

Healthy Lifestyles Champs Virtual Conference

The Healthy Lifestyle champs virtual conference 2021 took place on Wednesday 10 November, with 48 schools involved nationally. Our team of champs are Jenson, Jacob, James, Brooke, Keeley, Martha and Jessica. They were fantastic in what was a long day of over six hours on a virtual platform -there were breaks and practical challenges throughout the day. In fact, the Drumba session was fun, even though we had technical difficulties halfway through.

We were informed of health benefits of exercise, and we all learned new facts. The afternoon was spent in planning our involvement with our primary schools and also the Health Champ day for year 9, with a view to running a follow on activity for 25 students during the summer.

The primary school health event is scheduled for 27 January and our ambassadors will be visiting primary schools to expand on healthy lifestyles during March-April 2022. The session for year 9 students will take place in the New Year once planning has been completed and we are allocated our YST athlete mentor who will be with us on the day.

ADVANCE NOTICE

The rearranged Primary Schools Cross Country will take place on Tuesday 16 November from 123pm at Starkholmes.

Year 10 level 1 sports leaders IV assessment will take place on Friday 19 November from 1.40-3pm.

Match reports

Derbyshire Schools Cup - Y8 boys vs Frederick Gent School

Mr Searson

The year 8 boys hosted Frederick Gent School on Monday evening, 8 November, in the first round of the Derbyshire FA Schools Cup. The fixture was played at a real high level and quality, with both teams playing some good football when they had the ball, whilst also making it really difficult for the other team out of possession with some excellent defensive tackles. The game finished 1-1 in normal time after Maxwell had equalised for Highfields at the beginning of the second half, which meant the tie had to be decided on penalties.

The penalty shootout was a very tense affair with both sets of players showing exceptional character and confidence to step up and take a penalty in those circumstances. Tyler, Maxwell, Dylan, Theo and Deon stepped up for the first 5 penalties after volunteering, and the shootout went right through to sudden death where Zak made an exceptional save to give Highfields the chance to win it if they scored their next penalty. Ethan stepped up and calmy put the ball into the corner to send Highfields through to the 2nd round of the Derbyshire FA cup.

Well done lads, great effort and team spirit throughout!

Y9 girls County Cup

Mr Shirtcliffe

On Monday evening our year 9 girls football team played Fredrick Gent School in their first game on the new astro turf. The squad was made up of year 7, year 8 and year 9's. The girls matched up against a very strong and powerful team in Fredrick Gent. We played some excellent football in the first half, yet against the run of play we conceded a goal, but our heads didn't go down. In the period after the goal we applied constant pressure and had 4 shots, all of which were saved. The second half saw us grow in confidence and the passing was excellent, great link up play all round, this resulted in the equaliser by way of a well worked through ball from Ruby with Taylah getting on the end with a neat finish. Unfortunately, we couldn't capitalise on the pressure, having 6 clear attempts we couldn't get passed their goalkeeper who was on form.

The game then went to penalties (which is always a lottery), we rallied and organised the penalty takers and went forth, unfortunately the small goals hindered us slightly and we ended up losing 2-1 on penalties. A massive well done to all the players, penalties can be tough and put pressure on individuals, they all stood tall and demonstrated a true Highfields spirit. Thanks also to the parents/carers that came along to support, it was much appreciated.

Great work - We Are Highfields.