Sports News from the Stoke College Pavilion

The benefits in sports participation at school are numerous from physical fitness and personal growth to stress relief and social interaction. The Stoke College sports department celebrate a successful year of growth and development of skills that will take students beyond the sports field.

This year has seen sport at the college grow immensely both on and off the sports field. The curriculum has been widened to now include orienteering, table tennis and POP lacrosse and we are excited to have the use of the pool shortly for both lessons and co-curricular activities. A big thank you to the Stoke College PTA who have supported the refurbishment of our old table tennis tables and purchasing of new ones which will enable us to host ISA events in the future.

This year saw us win four gold medals in the ISA East Region Gala and have 4 swimmers qualify for ISA Nationals at the Olympic Pool, London where we won a gold, silver and bronze, a fantastic achievement!

In cross-country we had students with 2nd, 4th and 5th place finishes which meant three national qualifiers where one of our runners came in an immense 5th position. ISA Athletics is always a major highlight in the calendar and this year saw us pick up a number of medals including 1 silver, 1 bronze and 3 golds.

In hockey and rugby we saw some big wins against some of our local rivals but a special mention must go to our U18 rugby team who went unbeaten this season including a mammoth victory at home against Gosfield whilst our U13s ended the season with a superb win in a triangular tournament. We would also have attended the national ISA 7s this year for the first time had the March snowstorms not gotten the better of us on our journey down to London.

Our U13 Netball team improved hugely as the spring term went on and this culminated with a 9th place finish in the whole of the East region, well done to them whilst our U15’s also showed what they are capable of with a big win against Brookes. Our U18 netball team also improved greatly as term progressed and had a resounding win against Gosfield.

We would like to welcome Tom H and Kitty B, Year 12, into their roles as Sports Captains. We would like to wish our departing Year 13 sports students the very best for their exciting futures. The drive and determination this year of students has been exciting to see and we look forward to building on this in the comming academic year. The sporting future is bright here at Stoke!