Table Tennis

BADMINTON 2021/22

WORDS BY Mr Simon Lincoln, Head of PE

The Badminton season has been another very enjoyable one. The Thursday lunchtime club has been in high demand as boys attend in high numbers to further develop the skills they have learnt in their PE lessons. Many boys who attended have had the opportunity to represent the school in the district competition that ran over 4 weeks. We had 33 boys play for the squad representing the A,B,C and D Teams. They had the opportunity to pitch their skills against other local schools with great success. The D Team came 6th, the C Team came 4th whilst the A and B Teams came 1st and 2nd respectively to both qualify for the county finals.

The A Team went on to win the county final. The competition consisted of playing the other qualifiers from the county in a round robin tournament. The A Team consisting of Leo Mathew, Jack Down, Ben Maddaford, Joshua George and Alex Turner successfully won all their games to win the competition. The B team comprised of Zealand Ye, Aryan Sohanpal, Blake Balachandran, Freddie Bowis and Lewis Noble also performed very well, only losing to our A Team. Unfortunately, the competition will not progress onto the regional round this year but we will get the opportunity to qualify for the regionals and possibly nationals next year. Well done to all the 33 boys who represented the badminton team this year.

At the start of the year we took the long journey to Eastbourne College to play in the IAPS Badminton Finals Day. BPS had 4 pairs entered with 2 teams at U11 and 2 teams at U13. It was a fantastic day with the opportunity for our top players to compete in a tournament. The U11 teams of Josh Tsang, Hugo Vincent, Seb Pointer and Lucas Northey did really well and played some good badminton, and will have really learnt from the experience of the day. The U13 pairing of Ben Maddaford and Josh George made it all the way to the semi finals before losing to the eventual winners. The other pairing of Leo Mathew and Jack Down went one better and made it all the way to the final and put up a brave performance as they then lost 2 games to 1.

A superb effort from all the boys who played in the Badminton Team this year.

This year has been the most successful and busy year for table tennis that there has ever been. Beginning in the Autumn Term with two District competitions, the U11 & U13 teams showed their potential by sweeping all before them in order to move on to the County rounds. In the Spring term at least 30 year 4 boys were introduced to regular coaching and their interest can still be seen on the outdoor tables every break time. The year 5 boys came second in the U11 county finals with the year 6 boys coming third, and a combined year 5 & 6 team represented the county in the national area competition in Grantham. In the U13 age group we were county champions, runners-up in the Zone 4 region

and progressed to the national semi-finals in Blackburn - a tough day against three very good teams ensued. Losing the first two matches to Altrincham and St Mary’s without winning a single rubber was a sharp reminder of the standard being played. However, with renewed determination a victory over Birkenhead saw a third place in the regionals achieved.

The Summer term saw just one competition, the IAPS Championships at Edge Grove School, where, despite some very good play, no player made the semi-finals, but all had a great experience.

In addition to the competition success, we are regularly getting 25 boys to lunch clubs in all sessions with most of these boys taking part for fun and enjoyment.

TABLE TENNIS 2021/22

WORDS BY

Mr Simon Lincoln,

Head of PE