Director of Sport’s Season Review

DIRECTOR OF SPORT’S

Season

As some of you may know, I start each year’s review with a quote. With all that the academic year 2019-20 has brought, I could think of no better than the words of the late great Martin Luther King Jnr, who said: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he lays in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy”.

This academic year has been the most challenging on record for pupils, staff and our sector. It began with torrential rain throughout December and January, which saw much of our fixture programme abandoned, and then came Covid-19 and the closure of our school, resulting in the abandonment of our fixture programme, along with the cancellation of all professional and recreational sport for three months. Throughout this time, our pupils - as well as the wider world of sport - showed their resilience and demonstrated the way that sport can provide a platform for change.

The period of lockdown saw our pupils actively engaged with our online sports programme, social media challenges, and our key workers sports and, thanks to the incredible effort from all involved, we ensured that we could provide sports sessions for pupils from Lower Third to Lower Sixth once lockdown restrictions began to ease.

Recent events loom large in our thoughts but, as we look back across the whole school year, it is important to remember the successes of the first term and a half and these can be captured in the figures below:

• A record number of teams represented our rugby, hockey, football, netball, swimming and shooting clubs, which saw almost 90% of our pupil body play a competitive fixture for St John’s. • The U14A Hockey girls reached the National Finals. • U15A Football reached the National Quarter Finals. • U15A Rugby boys reached the National Cup Final, though sadly this was abandoned due to Covid-19. • U18 Netball 1st VII qualified for the National Cup. • Senior Girls 4x50 freestyle relay were the National Swimming Bath & Otter Cup Winners. • We had the highest recorded take up for boys and girls pre-season/winter cricket programme. • We successfully launched an U15 Netball Tour, which will travel to Dubai in February 2021, and an U15 Cricket Tour, which will travel to St Lucia in March 2021 (Covid permitting). Gareth James, Director of Sport SPORT The Johnian 2020 85