Summer Term 2022: Season Reports

Summer Term Sport

Summer term seems so very distant, but the September sun is still shining, and our pupils and staff are full of energy as we start the autumn term.

As we look ahead to the opportunities of the new school year, it is also important to look back and reflect on where we have been and what has been accomplished.

We hope you enjoy these round-ups of our summer term sports. We also have the opportunity to recognise those who received colours and commendations. Additionally, I would like to congratulate our four pupils who received our Sport Awards on Speech Day, which were awarded in recognition of the impact they have made on Uppingham Sport throughout their time here. They are Freddie Read (M), Herbie Linney (F), Amelia Cumming (C) and Jemma Jackson (C), and I would like to personally thank them for their contributions to our sport programme.

We were delighted to welcome the new Fourth Form last Sunday with a slightly different introduction than previous years - a massive orienteering bonanza around the whole of Uppingham! This saw pupils team up, get to know each other, and take part in various tasks to uncover and understand the ABCs of our performance behaviours – Altruism, Bravery and Commitment.

Over this academic year, we will be theming the terms for our Fourth Form, allowing them to try a variety of sports and gain skills to help them excel not just in sport, but in life.

As we welcome hundreds of new pupils this term, we also welcome a number of new members of staff to the department, including two PE teachers, two athletic development coaches, three graduate coaches and, for the first time, three students from Loughborough University on placement.

We look forward to a busy and brilliant term ahead, and I look forward to meeting many of you at our welcome event.

Nick De Luca Director of Sport

Herbie Linney (F)

The boys’ athletics teams had an outstanding season this year, with the Inter team seeing two new records and the Seniors now unbeaten since 2019.

After an impressive week of training to begin the season, the team hosted a home fixture on 23 April, with strong competition from Oundle, Rugby, Stamford and Stowe. The event would see a promising start to the season, with Uppingham gaining an overall victory. A number of strong performances were recorded, with both the Junior and Inter teams coming 3rd and 2nd respectively in their competitions. The Senior boys also kickstarted the season with an astounding 1st place in their competition.

The following week, the team travelled to Rugby for another exciting event. It was here that the team would meet with rivals Oakham for the first time in the season. The Inters received a respectable 3rd place in the event, alongside the Seniors who, again, took 1st place in their competition.

On 5 May, Uppingham sent some of their best track athletes to the annual ‘Achilles relays’ in Oxford. This event has great historical context, starting in 1963. The track is also widely recognised for being the location for Sir Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile record set in 1954. The team would take on some challenging opposition, most notably from Millfield who boasted a strong team. Despite the difficult opposition, the team would qualify for both the 4x100m and 4x200m relay finals.

The team travelled to Oakham on 12 May for the Oakham Relay event. This has traditionally been a huge event in the calendar, famously consisting only of relays. Uppingham put forth a strong team as usual, and managed to attain a 3rd, 2nd and 1st place amongst the Junior, Inter and Senior teams. Uppingham would miss out on 1st place overall by a narrow 3 points, showing the high level of competition at the event.

Despite some of the team’s athletes feeling fatigued after the Uppingham ‘Paarlauf’, the following day would see the boys take on Oundle on their own track. The Inter boys performed well, achieving 2nd place in their competition. Most notably, the Seniors took 1st place once again. A similar performance was seen by both the Senior and Inter teams during the event at Bromsgrove on 21st May. The Inters would again take 2nd place and Seniors taking yet another 1st place finish.

The ‘County Champs’ saw much success for the Uppingham boys. In the Junior competition, Theo Garwe (Fgh) took 2nd place in the discus. In the Inters team, Ed Eastwood (Fgh) came 1st in his 400m event and Austin Philpot (M) took 2nd place in the javelin. In the Senior competition, William Lagesse (Fgh) came 1st in the 800m, William Browning (F) took 1st in the high jump, Christian Brassey (SH) placed 2nd in the 100m, Adeore Edwards (B) finished in 2nd place in the triple jump and Maverick Chow (Hf) came 2nd in the high jump. The senior 4x100m relay team also displayed a strong performance, coming in 1st place overall.

The athletics team has shown excellence in both training and competitions this season. There has been an enthusiastic approach to training this year, with members of the team throwing themselves into new events and pushing themselves to achieve countless personal bests and even some new school records. William Lagesse has broken the school record in the 800m, shattering the previous record - which had stood for two decades - with a 1.57.2 finish. Austin Philpot also set an impressive new record for the Inters javelin with 46m 80cm.

Lauren Shaw (Sa)

This season the girls’ athletics team had some fantastic results, including the best Senior girls’ performance for many years alongside many records being broken by the Seniors and Inters.

We started off the season with intense training, including lots of bonding time as a squad. Our first home fixture was challenging, playing against many strong schools such as Oundle, Stamford, Stowe, and Rugby, but with strong performances from Saskia Williams (NH) and Tabby Todd (Sa). Our bonding time as a team earlier on in the week proved to have worked well, with lots of encouragement and enthusiasm helping us to win our first fixture.

The next week we all travelled to Rugby, where we faced our rivals Oakham. I would like to congratulate Ella Mayhew (L), who stepped up to do high jump for us and, in the second fixture, broke the school record with a jump of 1m 55cm, which is incredible!

The Achilles relays in Oxford on 5 May came round far too quickly. This was a big event for Uppingham, as this season’s girls’ relay teams had pulled through with some incredible results so far. Being a very challenging competition, the senior girls unfortunately didn’t come first, but they did break a school record in the 4x100m relay, finishing in 53.2 seconds. I would like to personally congratulate Saskia Williams, Kelly Smit (C), Ella Mayhew, and Zara Clark-Jones (L), who were all part of this team.

We then travelled to Oakham on 12 May for the famous Oakham Relays. This is one of the biggest events in the calendar for the athletics season as everyone puts in 100% effort, creating a fantastic and encouraging atmosphere. We put forward many strong teams as usual, with our Junior and Inter girls coming 2nd and Senior girls coming 1st once again, meaning we came out 1st overall, which is one of our best results so far.

We then faced Oundle on their home turf. Despite everyone being exhausted from our traditional ‘Paarlauf’, which many of the girls took part in the day before, everyone’s spirts were still high and we were ready to try our best. A huge congratulations to the Senior girls for coming 1st once again this season in this fixture with some incredible results. Carla Hinterding (L) got a school record in javelin with a throw of 23m 17cm, and Amelia Wordie (C) got a school record in high jump, jumping 1m 50cm.

We then had one of our final fixtures at Bromsgrove on the 21 May. Despite having many Seniors off due to exams, the Lower Sixth girls stepped up to the challenge and competed in events they wouldn’t normally do, so well done to all those who competed. The Inter girls came out with an amazing 1st place and the Seniors came 2nd overall.

County Champs saw much success for the girls’ athletics squad. In the Inter girls squad, I would like to congratulate India Wyatt (C) on coming 3rd in the 200m, Amelia Wordie on coming 3rd in the long jump, Isabella Best (Sa) on coming 2nd in the hurdles and Charlotte Munro (Sa) on coming 2nd in the 1500m. This is a great achievement for all of you and you should be very proud. In the senior competition, Saskia Williams came 3rd in 100m, Carla Hinterding came 2nd in javelin, Ella Mayhew 2nd in high jump, Tabitha Todd came 1st in 1500m and 2nd in 800m. I’d also like to give a big shout out to Kelly Smit for coming 1st in 200m, 3rd in 400m and 1st in the relay event, well done to everyone who took part you really did the school proud.

Congratulations to the following pupils who also broke school records; Saskia Williams in 100m (12.8 seconds), Kelly Smit in 200m (27.2 seconds), and Tabby Todd in 800m (2mins 27s). Finally, a huge congratulations to Amelia Wordie on getting another two school records for the Inters, achieving 13.5 seconds in the hurdles and jumping 4m 90cm in the long jump.

It would not be an athletics season without Mr Birch and Mr Matthews, so I would like to thank them both for their amazing support and enthusiasm this season, which really encouraged us as a squad to succeed and do our best.

Finally, as the girls’ athletics captain, I would like to say thank you to you all for an amazing and fun last athletics season of mine. We have shown excellence and determination in both fixtures and training, I would like to put a big emphasis on the enthusiasm throughout this season and the encouragement and support towards each other. With many records broken from the Inters through to the Seniors, I wish you all the best of luck next athletics season and I am sure there will be many more records broken again. Good luck girls!

Shooting

Kevin Gladding Head of Shooting

Following a great shooting season, we took an inexperienced team of seven to the schools meeting at Bisley this July. Due to the disruption of the pandemic, none of the team members had ever shot before.

Bisley - The National Rifle Association’s headquarters – is a major full-bore target rifle shooting event, and this year it fell within the UK’s summer heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 35 degrees centigrade. Team captain Alistair White (SH) led Reeve Lim (SH), Jeremy Tsai (Fgh), Declan Yuen (WD), Jiaxin Shen (C), Ruby Richardson (NH) and Alister Wong (WB) through the week-long competition.

The programme had originally planned for individual events on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, where competitors would shoot in the hope of making it to the Top 100 board. However, the Monday Aggregate had to be written off due to wildfires within a dangerous distance of the ranges, with shooting suspended for safety reasons.

The competitions resumed on Tuesday and Wednesday, with cadets taking part in The Wellington 300yrd, The Iveagh 500yrd and The Victoria Tankard 600yrd.

The team enjoyed some success on Tuesday and Wednesday with the individual competitions, with the following commendations received:

Reeve Lim 11th in the Iveagh winning a silver spoon Declan Yeun 52nd in the Iveagh winning a silver spoon Alister Wong 91st in the Iveagh winning a silver spoon Jeremy Tsia 77th in the Wellington winning a silver spoon Ruby Richardson 100th in the Wellington winning a silver spoon

Thursday was team competition day, with Uppingham entered into Schools Four, the Schools Pairs and the reserves, which saw every team member shooting at 300, 500 and 600 yrds

After the hottest week ever for the schools meeting, the team were ready for the final day of shooting with everyone in good spirits and willing to give it their all.

Our Schools Four team, comprised of Alastair White, Jeremy Tsai, Ruby Richardson and Declan Yuen, came third overall, winning with a score of 315 with 11 V bulls. The Schools Pairs team of Reeve Lim and Alister Wong achieved silver medals with a second place finish.

The event ended with the whole team winning the Regimental Regional Trophy – the Bermuda Cup – beating Oakham, Oundle, Stamford and Nottingham High School.

William Butterworth (Fgh)

This season, the boys’ tennis squad have had a fantastic season with lots of great moments to report, including some brilliant results and excellent training sessions.

The boys came back to school with the aim of a successful season. At the start of the season, we identified our goals for training. We wanted to ensure that we were dominant in the cross-court exchange and wanted to be aggressive at the net.

We set out with this goal from the get-go and our first training session looked very promising for the first game of the season against Stamford. On the Saturday, we went out trying to put our goals into practice and we were very successful, with our first game ending in an 8-1 win for the 1st VI and the 2nd VI, showing that our practice had paid off.

Going into the next game, we had a new focus for the week and the season, which was our communication with our partners on our plan for each point. This allowed us to play better together and win points through strategy. This proved to be successful when we played against Oundle, where we won the game 9-7.

The start of the season had gone brilliantly, and the team showed a really good attitude to persevere with the matches to ensure we got the win even after a change in the scoring system for the match. After beating two of our local rivals, we prepared to face Oakham who we knew would be a challenge. However, after thorough training in the week, we emerged with a 7-2 win for the 1st VI and an 8-1 win for the 2nd VI and a 6-3 win for the 3rd VI - a clean sweep for Uppingham!

The following week would provide our biggest challenge against Repton. We trained hard in the week and showed a great attitude as we worked on our game, However, it wasn’t to be and Repton won comfortably against all of our teams.

We then came up against Rugby, and we knew it was going to be a close fixture. We felt prepared and confident going into the game. The results on the day went right down to the wire, and the 1st VI narrowly lost out 6-3 and the 3rd VI losing 5-4. However, it was a great fixture for the 2nd VI, where they clinched the game to win 5-4 in the final match.

This season has seen some great results for boys’ tennis, and one important thing to mention would be the team’s attitude and approach throughout the season - all the boys have taken each training session seriously and given maximum effort in all of our matches, no matter the result, which was a real highlight for the season.

Emily Le Marquand (J)

The first team girls have been able to develop their physical, mental and tactical skills not only individually, but also with each other this season.

Despite being faced with a variety of challenges from different schools, our main focuses have developed a lot and become key in our match structure.

We had a strong start against Stamford with a score of 8-1, and this was followed by a series of close matches, and some much more challenging. One example of this was our fixture against Repton, which despite their level of ability, was a really positive experience in which the team were able to experiment and take advantage of the opportunity.

One of our major focuses has been involvement at the net, which has been clearly demonstrated throughout the team with particularly outstanding movement and attack from Jemma Jackson (C) and Kate Ewbank (J), who I think deserve particular recognition for their effort, teamwork and success. They have entered each match with a determined attitude and been able to influence the rest of the team with their positivity and communication which has proven to be successful through their many wins, and also come backs, including our fixture against Oakham where they won two out of their three matches.

Millie Parr (L) and Ollie Henson (Fd) have also been able to work well together and use our focus of forehand groundstrokes to put the opposition’s backhand under pressure and have improved an impressive amount over the season. Having not played together before, match play, confidence and dealing with pressure has been an important factor and has seen them go from strength to strength each match, and the spin behind their forehands has been a weapon against the opposition on many occasions.

Ella Beighton (J) has shown great commitment to tennis this season and has really evolved with her tactical play and point structures, showing more and more aggression at the net and a stronger, more consistent serve with more spin. Her partnership with Emily Le Marquand has been a really enjoyable part of matches, allowing them to experiment with ways of attacking, with both players forward or back, and setting each other up to force the opponent’s error.

Cricket

Andy Siddall Director of Cricket

This summer’s cricket programme has brought with it a number of positives. Participation numbers grew in both the girls’ and the boys’ programmes, seeing us bring in a new boys’ U14C team and playing a 5th XI on a couple of occasions.

Over 100 fixtures were played across all teams and the vast majority registered some wins in the result column. This season also marked two special moments in the history books. Against Oakham, girls’ 1st XI Captain, Antonia Dilkes (NH), scored the first century by an Uppingham girl of 101 not out to open their season. The boys’ U14As won the Leicestershire County Cup - a competition that has run since 1894 - for the first time is the School’s history. They will now progress to the national competition next year where they will represent Leicestershire.

Girls’ cricket is in an exciting place, with the 1st XI winning 50% of their matches this summer, whilst numbers have grown dramatically at Fourth Form level with a number of gifted players at the School. Playing against competitors who were a year older on most occasions, the improvement was evident for the U14s, who trained diligently and played matches in great spirit. We are excited to see the girls’ programme continue to go from strength-to-strength next year.

The 1st XI boys had a season where small margins made big impacts on matches and results. Whilst individual performances improved across the board, seeing a 50% increase in those whose stats qualified them for Wisden (12 players in 2022 versus 6 in 2021), the team couldn’t return as many victories as they would have hoped, playing 17, winning 5, drawing 3, losing 9. Fittingly, Freddie Read (M) became the second winner of The Ballance Cup for his contributions to the team this year. Captaining again in 2022, the programme is in cracking shape thanks to the work that he and our other leaving senior players have done to shape our culture.

It is immensely pleasing that our all-round cricketing improvement, grounds, and programme development has been recognised nationally, with Uppingham being featured in The Cricketer Magazines Top 100 Cricketing Schools for 2022.

Thanks to all those who played, coached, officiated, catered, administrated, and supported what was an enjoyable summer of cricket.

Keven Johnstone Head of Golf

With over 40 pupils signed up for the Golf Enrichment programme on Sundays and a busy term of matches in the knock-out stages of the Independent Schools Golf Cup and the HMC Foursomes competition, the 2021-22 season would prove to be an exciting and rewarding one. A successful run in the ISGA cup with wins over Trent College and Stamford saw Uppingham qualify for the regional final, only to lose narrowly to Bromsgrove 2-1. The team of Archie Alton (M), Thomas Jackson (SH), Lulu Leetham (J) and Matthew Roberts (Hf) equipped themselves well,and with three of the team at Uppingham for at least another two years, the future looks bright.

A particular goal for Summer 2023 will be to qualify for the HMC finals, as Uppingham will be hosting these at Luffenham Heath Golf Club. Our first round of the 2022-23 competition is against Newhall School. This ‘3 pair’ foursomes format is an excellent opportunity for team collaboration and cooperation in a sport dominated by individual endeavours.

With a focus towards peer-on-peer coaching and a multitude of additional golfers in the programme, competition for places in the team was fierce. The Sunday sessions during the autumn and spring terms provided opportunities for lessons, practice and play on both Rutland Water and Luffenham Heath golf courses. We also look forward to the arrival and installation of a brand new golf simulator to significantly boost the exposure of pupils and other users. My sincere thanks go particularly to Derek Bunting OU and our ‘old boys’ golfers (OUGS), who have been instrumental in securing the funding for this project. This will provide an opportunity for pupils to practice all year round and receive professional coaching too.

Our annual OUGS v The School match took place in October at Luffenham, with the winning team having their team name inscribed on a medal which will hang on the shaft of the ‘long nosed putter’ donated by Stuart Lloyd OU. On this occasion The School were victorious. The team consisted of Archie Alton, Lulu Leetham, Matthew Roberts, Harry Nettleton (LH), Hans Sanders (Fgh) and Mr Johnstone.

One of the most enjoyable fixtures of the season is the ‘Schools Challenge Cup’ an annual match first started in 2003. Here the four local independent schools (Uppingham, Oundle, Oakham and Stamford) play stableford in a fourball format with one pupil per school in each group. The top 6 scores per school count towards their team total. This year Uppingham prevailed. Team: Lulu Leetham (J), Thomas Jackson (SH), Kevin Liu (SH), Emmi Malai (C), Harry Nettleton (LH), Tom Ray (M), Karan Johal (J), Louis Wright (Hf)

Further matches during the summer term saw Uppingham defeat Culford School and draw with Bedford at Woburn. Considering we were playing opposition whose handicaps were considerably lower than the majority of the Uppingham team, it was an impressive feat to record these results. The Inter-House competition results saw School House and Johnson’s winning the team events and Thomas Jackson and Lulu Leetham winning the individual events.

It has been rewarding to see pupils of all ages representing the golf team this year and to see more girls involved in the programme too. I expect the new golf simulator will help identify additional talent and look forward to the new season starting. Special mention should go to Lulu Leetham, who was selected for the England regional squad and to Thomas Jackson for his inclusion into the Hungarian National Junior team. Both Lulu and Thomas have bright futures in the sport ahead. My thanks to Mr Gomm, Mr Jarvis and Mr Wright for assisting with the matches and transporting the pupils.

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