Coming Back to Sport

As the world returned to normal, Fola Odolfin interviewed our Director of Sport about the exciting comeback of sports fixtures at PGS

What was it like coming back to Saturday Sports, after it was gone for most of this year?

It has taken a long time to return to Saturday fixtures but we have had Saturday Sport throughout the last year in some form. It has ranged from online classes in CrossFit and Dance to Saturday Internal Sport with over 350 pupils involved across the day. We have been really pleased with Saturday commitment from the majority of pupils and are very keen to see this continue.

It is fantastic that we are now starting a phased return to Saturday competitive sport with inter school fixtures. Pupils have missed this opportunity and it is great we can offer them the chance to challenge themselves in this way again. We have now gone 14 months without playing a competitive inter school match, which seems crazy. It is certainly time to see these return and we hope that pupils are looking forward to them as much as the sports staff are.

What do you have on offer during the day?

Initially we will be playing cricket fixtures against other schools but also offering internal athletics and tennis for those not selected in any of the cricket teams. We hope to return to athletics and tennis fixtures in the coming weeks. We are obviously looking to get back to as many sporting opportunities as possible as quickly but importantly as safely as we can.

What changes did you have to do because of COVID?

We have had to do a lot of planning both at Hilsea and with the other schools we plan to play. There are a lot of considerations from transport, changing rooms, catering and even toilet facilities that have to be reviewed and systems put in place to allow fixtures to happen. We must follow the National Governing Body regulations for each sport as well as sticking to the Department of Education guidance around fixtures, bubbles and COVID security.

What do you hope to do for this last half term/ do you think you’ll be going back to matches?

We certainly hope the last 3 weeks if this half term and all of next half term will allow us to return to competitive fixtures. We have to continue to follow the advice and guidance given to us as a school and for each sport but the picture certainly looks much brighter in terms of fixtures.

As I mentioned previously we have managed to keep Saturday Sport going throughout this whole period in some form and that is testament to the character of both the pupils and the staff here at PGS.