Sport at Skinners'

Welcome to Skinners’ Sport 2022/23

Welcome to Skinners’ Sport I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new Year 7 cohort. I have every confidence that many of you will have played plenty of sport either at primary school or at local clubs. There will also be many students who will have little or no previous sporting experience. I am proud to announce Skinners’ Sport caters for all students, regardless of sporting backgrounds, levels of confidence, or ability. We strive to provide positive sporting opportunities for all students throughout their seven years with us. It is our belief that regular participation in sport helps all students nurture their social, physical, and intellectual skills, developing healthy minds and bodies.

Joining a new school can be dauting - everything is different and in many ways a lot bigger! Sport can be used as a brilliant platform to form and develop new friendships that can last a school career and beyond. Many of our sixth form students have strong friendship groups that were made in Year 7 on the rugby pitch or hockey Astroturf.

I’d like to set you a challenge: be open to trying new activities and the sports that Skinners’ has to offer. We have expert staff and excellent facilities that allow us to provide sport for you. Regardless of previous experiences you may have, give sport a go at Skinners’. Don’t be afraid of getting things wrong or making mistakes. The sport staff at Skinners’ are passionate about supporting and enhancing the development of young people through sport. All staff who work on our sport programme have plenty of experience working with students of all abilities and backgrounds. Ultimately, our aim is to instil a life long passion for sport and physical activity that lasts longer than just your time at school.

A school sport career is incredibly short. After seven years it is gone for good. Speaking to many of our sixth form sport students, many don’t realise this until it’s too late. Make sure you make the most of what is on offer before it’s too late!

In this booklet I have provided all the Skinners’ Sport information you need which will hopefully make the transition easier for you. If you do have any further questions, please do feel free to get in touch.

Finally, I wish you all the very best of luck during your time at Skinners’ and whatever you do make sure you have the following in the forefront of your mind: ➢ Have fun ➢ Work hard ➢ Be passionate about progressing

Mr Will Burrows Director of Sport

Sport Staff For many of the sports we run at Skinners’, we have a designated person running each programme. This member of staff will be responsible for organising fixtures and overseeing Games sessions and extra-curricular training. If you have any questions about a specific sport. Please feel free to contact the relevant member of staff directly.

Mr W. Burrows Mr T. Sullivan Mr N. McBride Mr R. Pursglove Dr R. Newbold Mr P. Mesecke

Director of Sport Head of Rugby Head of Athletic Development Head of Football Head of Cross Country Head of Basketball

will.burrows@skinners-school.org.uk truman.sullivan@skinners-school.org.uk nick.mcbride@skinners-school.org.uk robert.pursglove@skinners-school.org.uk richard.newbold@skinners-school.org.uk paul.mesecke@skinners-school.org.uk

For all other sports that are not listed above, please contact our PE & Games Assistant at sport@skinners-school.org.uk.

Games Afternoons All students at Skinners’ have a two-hour Games session on their timetable every week.

In Year 7, this session takes place after lunch during Period 4 & 5. In order to maximise the time, on a Friday Y7 students are instructed to arrive at school in the morning, and spend the school day, wearing full Skinners’ Games kit. On their Games afternoon all students need to meet in the Sports Hall at 13:15.

The basic premise at Year 7 is that a student will do three different sports across the three terms - one each term. You will find below the ‘Game of the term’ schedule.

Autumn Rugby

Spring Football or Hockey

Summer Cricket

All Games sessions will finish at the end of the school day, 15:35.

Off Games If a student is injured or ill, the PE & Games department need to be informed of this with a letter or email from a parent or guardian. This should be provided at the start of the PE or Games session, or before. If a student is ‘Off Games’ for more than two lessons, then a doctor of physiotherapist’s note is required; this will be then be stored in our long-term injury file.

Our philosophy at Skinners’ is that all students can have a positive experience and make a significant contribution to each session, despite a given injury. Students who cannot participate due to injury may be provided with tasks such as observation and analysis of colleagues, refereeing/umpiring, scoring, and some peer coaching.

On rare occasions, students can be permitted to attend a classroom for private study.

Youth Pathway The Youth Pathway is run by our Head of Athletic Development, Mr McBride. Students on the Youth Pathway attend weekly strength and conditioning sessions in the Performance Centre. The focus is on laying the foundations for movement competency.

The sessions include work on greater stability development, improving range of motion and flexibility, and progressively introducing formal strength exercises. This builds a solid foundation for later strength training, making them a stronger, more powerful and robust athlete in their relevant sports.

Students will be selected by the PE and Games staff at Skinners’ based on their talent, present representation and commitment to improving.

Extra-Curricular Programme In additional to our timetabled Games sessions, all students will also be provided with further sport sessions outside of the timetable. These activities will take place before school, and lunchtimes, and after school. At the start of each term, our extra-curricular programme will be released, detailing when and where each activity takes place. In Year 7, the following activities are provided for each student Autumn

Spring

Summer

Rugby Basketball Cross Country Badminton Table Tennis

Football Hockey Cross Country Cricket Badminton Table Tennis

Cricket Athletics Tennis Cross Country

House Sport Every student and member of staff is assigned a House during their time at Skinners’.

Naturally, this leads to healthy competition between each House through sport. Our House Sport programme provides sporting opportunities for all students, in a slightly more relaxed environment compared to the fixtures we have against other schools. In order to ensure as many students get the opportunity to participate in our House Sport programme, it is common to run two competitions in each age group for each sport.

The majority of our House Sport competitions take place on a Saturday morning during the Spring term, and parents and guardians are more than welcome to support.

In previous years we have run competitions in the following sports; rugby, football, cricket, cross country, hockey, basketball, tennis, badminton, and table tennis.

Fixtures Skinners’ strong sporting reputation enables us to take great pride in the fixtures we provide for our students. Many of the schools we compete against are rated as some of

the top sporting schools in the South East. The majority of our sports fixtures for Year 7 students take place during the week, predominantly during their Friday afternoon Games session. However, from Year 8 onwards our major Games sport fixtures take place on a Saturday and it is a requirement that all students are available for selection to represent Skinners’, and will honour the commitment. The school sport fixtures we provide should take priority over the club sport your son may also be involved in. If, for any reason, your son is unavailable for a particular fixture, please do let the PE & Games department know at the earliest convenience, with no less than three days’ notice. If your son is planning to miss a school fixture due to an alternative sporting commitment elsewhere (e.g. representative sport), the Director of Sport must be notified.

Students will be provided with either coach or minibus transport to and from each away sporting fixture.

Parents are most welcome to attend all sports fixtures both home and away. At Southfields, our onsite kiosk, HANKS, will be open on a Saturday to all spectators to purchase both hot and cold refreshments.

Team Selection Our aim is to provide all students with an opportunity to represent the school in sporting fixtures. As such, at Year 7 alone we have seven rugby teams, four hockey teams, and five cricket teams (as well as many other teams in our minor sports too). We have introduced football at Year 7 for the first time this year, we expect as least four football teams to be formed.

Having this number of teams in each sport allows sport to be accessible to all students joining the school. At Year 7, our philosophy is that no student is ‘dropped’ or ‘not good enough’, instead students move up and down the teams in order to ensure they are playing the level of sport that is most appropriate to their stage of development. We recognise that all young athletes develop at different stages, we are passionate about supporting this development throughout their time with us at Skinners’.

We politely ask that you respect the judgement of the staff selecting each team. Team sheets will be published at least three days prior to the event.

Facilities Our sporting facilities include the main school site, and over 18 acres of playing fields at Southfields. At the main school, we have a state-of-the-art Sports Centre housing a full size basketball court (and four badminton courts), a bouldering and climbing wall, fitness suite, weights room, and a Sport Science classroom. We also have a floodlit seven-a-side hockey Astroturf pitch that also doubles up as three tennis courts during the summer term.

At Southfields we have five rugby pitches, switching in the middle term to six football pitches, as well as three cricket squares and a recently installed five lane Astroturf cricket net facility. The sports pavilion has five changing rooms, as well as a function

room where boys will enjoy their match tea after competitive school fixtures. For all hockey Games sessions and fixtures, we use the full size, flood lit, hockey Astroturf pitch at Hawkenbury.

Our 1st XI cricketers also play matches at the Nevill Ground, in Tunbridge Wells, a venue that in the past has hosted first class and international cricket.

Kit & Equipment All students must have the compulsory Games kit that is listed below. The kit will be worn during all Games sessions and extra-curricular training. This kit will also double up as the school’s rugby, hockey, and football kit. ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

Red and black Games shirt (reversible) Plain black shorts Skinners’ Games socks Skinners’ Black mid layer

For those who will play competitive cricket for the school, students will also need to purchase a Skinners’ white cricket shirt and red Skinners’ cap. All the kit above can be purchased at Simmonds; however, some kit can also be purchased at our second-hand uniform shop.

Students are expected to provide their own basic sports equipment if they wish to play in one of the school’s teams (e.g. hockey stick, cricket bat). The school will provide more specialist equipment such as hockey goalkeeping or cricket wicket keeping equipment.

It is the school’s policy that all students must wear a mouthguard when playing rugby and hockey. Skinners’ have a professional partnership with O-Pro, members of the National Dental Mouthguard Association, and custom fitted mouthguards are available to purchase with a bespoke design. Please note that mouthguards are required for every Games session for all students, whether or not they are in school sport teams or not.

Inline with various sport National Governing Body safety regulations, shin pads are also required when playing hockey and football.

Cricket helmets must be worn by all students when batting and wicket keeping. In previous years, we have run a scheme allowing parents to purchase second-hand cricket equipment at a very reasonable price. This is dependent on the amount of second-hand kit that is donated. If we are in a position to run this scheme this year, we will communicate this with parents.

Website, Social Media, and Communication All information regarding fixtures will be posted on our school’s sport website, skinnerssports.co.uk. Students, and parents and guardians will be able to find upcoming fixtures, results, team lists, and additional information needed that may be relevant to a specific

event. Due to the safety of our students, all team lists are password protected. The password you will need to enter to gain access to each team sheet is Leopards1887.

In order to keep up to date on everything Skinners’ Sport, please follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @SkinnersSport.

For all sport related enquiries at Skinners’, please email sport@skinners-school.org.uk.

We endeavour to reply to all emails within 24 hours.

Code of Conduct All students must agree to the following code of conduct whilst being a part of our sport programme at Skinners. This code of conduct is available to view on the main school website and is also displayed around Southfields. ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

Play for their own fun and personal enjoyment.

Be a good sport.

Respect their opponents and the match officials - treat everyone as they themselves would wish to be treated.

Learn the rules and adhere to them.

Accept decisions; let their captain or coach ask any necessary questions.

Remember that the aim of the game is to have fun, improve skills and teamwork.

Work equally hard for the team as for themselves - their team’s performance will benefit alongside their own.

Co-operate with their coach, team-mates and opponents – without them, there would be no game.

Appreciate and respect the adults who make these opportunities possible.

Multi-Sport Day Finally, I would very much like to invite your son to our multi-sport day at Southfields on Friday 26th August 2022. The day provides a brilliant opportunity for all students to spend the day with their new year group in a slightly more relaxed setting before school starts the following week. It also allows the students to meet the PE & Games staff.

The sport sessions will start at 10am, as such I’d be grateful if all students could arrive by 9:45am. Throughout the day, all students will experience rugby, football, hockey, as well as some other multi-sport activities.

Students will need to wear their new full Skinners’ Games kit, and have a mouthguard, shin pads, and studded footwear with them. The day will finish at 3pm, including an hour lunchbreak. Please note that lunch is not provided so a pack lunch will be required for all students as well as enough water to last them the day. We have water fountains at Southfields where bottles can be refilled.

A polite reminder that there is no parking for parents at Southfields and I would ask you to be respectful to local residents when dropping off and picking up your son.