December 2011

U14 National Schools Hockey Champions

The U14 Girls took part in the U14 National

Schools on Tuesday 18th October. The team

played superbly well in the initial rounds,

winning their games convincingly against The

Perse, Saffron Walden County High School,

Stephen Perse and drawing against

Kimbolton. The afternoons classification

matches were held at Newport Grammar

School in which the girls won against King’s

Ely to play for 1st and 2nd place against The

Leys. After a nail-biting 30 minutes King’s

finished with a 2-0 victory and progressed to

the next round at Redbridge Hockey Club on

the 15th November. Here the girls finished in

5th place, competing against schools such as

Sevenoaks (Kent), Hockerill Anglo-Eurpean

(Herts) and Bancroft (Essex).

Boys hockey 19/10/11

The King’s School 2 – 1 Hills Road (King’s goals by Kelsey Brace and

Declan Shepherd)

The first game of the season show signs of promise for the future and

development from the year before.

Having not played together as a team before with an influx of new year

twelve and two year elevens, and an expected loss on the cards before

the afternoon push back, we began the game flustered and rushed,

taking ten or so minutes to settle down. As the game progressed, both

sides began to hold their own and shared possession. King’s started to

press well and kept the ball in the opposition’s half, winning a short

corner and numerous long corners, though our lack of pitch time

together showed as none could be converted. A Hills Road break

towards the end of the first half that resulted in the short corner and

soft goal which rolled through defenders and keeper was against the

run of play. Half time: 1-0 Hills Road.

King’s began the second half highly spirited, determined not to lose

another game and started to dominate. Shots were fired and saved but

despite the pressure, the deadlock could not be broken. The defence

pushed up and tackled any opponent who dared ven-ture out of their

own half. A third short corner broke the deadlock, with Kelsey Brace

knocking in at the near post. 1-1.

The endless running from the midfield- in particular Leo Davies who

was awarded Man of the Match- and sustained pressing from the

forwards intercepting any sixteens showed no player had settled for a

draw. This positive attitude was rewarded when a loose ball popped

out to Declan Shepherd who finished well into the bottom corner with

five minutes left on the clock. 2-1 King’s.

A roar of jubilation greeted the final whistle. The game was marred only

by a lack of clini-cal finishing in front of goal, with which we could have

reached double figures. The better side won, and there is now an

invincible aura to the team who now relish all future matches.

By Declan Shepherd

15 year-old Zara Bailey

competing for Jamaica in

the Pan American Games

Zara Bailey, a Year 11 pupil, has just returned

home from competing for Jamaica in the Pan

American Games.

Along with Molly Norman, also a Year 11

pupil, Zara manages to juggle studying for 12

GCSEs with 18 hours of swim training, starting

in the pool at 5 in the morning and returning

at 4 in the evening.

Zara swam in two events in Jamaica, the

400IM and 200IM. Zara had to adapt working

with a new Jamaican coach only a few days

before her events and the different altitude

which affected her breathing quite

considerably. She swam in the heats of the

400IM and 200IM with her times not beating

her personal best times but still achieving

times that meant she qualified for the B final.

Each time she improved her performance by a

further 2 seconds and finished 14th and 12th

respectively.

The chance to swim at an international meet-

ing is one that very few will ever get to do.

Mixing with and meeting different ath-

letes from different countries and back-

grounds meant she had the chance to com-

pare and contrast the different oppor-

tunities and experiences people have.

Zara is back on her gruelling training regime

and is working tirelessly to shave two seconds

of her personal best for the 200IM to qualify

for the 2012 Olympics. Watch this space.

All this could not be possible without the help

and support from her coach, Ben Ne-gus, and

her mother, Ruth Bailey.

Zara and one of the mascots in the Athletes Village—Huigi.

Flying High with Matthew Gladders

Loulé Cup, Portugal

This was my first real international

competition. I received my se-lection letter in

May this year, and eagerly accepted having

asked permission from Mr Longman to be

absent from school, from Wednesday 14th to

Monday 19th September.

We travelled down as a team, all in our of-

ficial tracksuits and there-fore getting some

odd looks in both airports. The team had all

trained with each other before, so there were

no unfamiliar faces or awkward silences.

Countries we expected to see from the entry

sheets included various European countries,

as well as USA, Canada, Mexico, Qatar etc.

It is fair to say that the Thursday training was an experience. The hall was open all day so

that the weekend’s international competitors could get comfortable with the trampolines

and put the finishing touches to their routines whenever they liked. We had organised a

late-morning training session, planning to do further training if need-be later in the day. I had

not intended on needing this extra afternoon session, but my plans were changed by the 5x4

trampolines:

Trampolines can vary hugely in design of the bedding with the bounciness and the control of

the trampoline largely determined by the width and length of each woven string. The

trampolines mostly used in British clubs & competitions and which I train on are 6mmx4mm,

and when these first came out, they gave the elite jumpers a chance to pull off moves which

had never before been possible. Now new more powerful designs have been produced with

the European 5x4 trampolines being the most recent, but I had never jumped on one of

these before. These give much more height, but much less control, than the 6x4s so were

difficult to adapt to.

I had prepared for Portugal knowing that I would be jumping both for my individual place,

and as a member of a team of four competitors within the U19Male category. Unfortunately,

the fourth member of our team, another Matt, suffered a freak injury on the training day

and was hospitalised, returning with his leg in a cast. This left just me, Jake and Guy compet-

ing against some of the big international names. Considering that I was still adjusting to the

trampolines, I was happy with my routines on the Friday to put me in a respectable 15th

place, although not high enough to make the finals the next day. Jake and Guy finished in

26th & 27th respectively with the team finishing 8th. It was a great learning experience and I

returned from Portugal well-tanned and happy as the highest scoring competitor of our

whole team.

Welsh Cup, Wales

For this more local international competition, I was

allowed the Friday away from school to travel down ready

for the mid-afternoon / evening training session. Once

again I met up with the others from the team to travel

down in our squad tracksuits. The schedule for this

competition was to train on Friday, and then compete on

Saturday and, depending on whether I could manage to

qualify for it, compete in the final on Sunday.

This competition included more age group categories so I

was able to compete in the U17 Male, which meant that I

could not be in a team with Guy or Jake, who are both in

Year13 at school. This meant that no one was relying on

my score to count, apart from myself, so I had decided to

go for a more difficult routine and pull out all the stops,

even if it increased the chances of going wrong. What’s

more, although the competition information detailed the

use of 5x4s, I was relieved to find there was a mixture of

5x4s and 6x4s; my favourite and most confident type of

trampoline.

My first routine, the set routine which everyone must

compete to enable fair comparison of form (how good the

routine looks) without taking difficulty into consideration,

had the second highest scores out of all the weekend’s

competitors! My voluntary routine, which can compose of

any ten moves and includes marks for the difficulty, was

still very high on form, which more than compensated for

my comparative lack in difficulty. I finished Saturday’s

preliminary rounds in 1st place, easily qualifying to

compete on Sunday’s final to try and retain my position.

The Saturday ended dramatically, with an hour delay due

to an U19Male competitor breaking his leg.

My final routine on the Sunday was yet better than my

voluntary so I therefore man-aged to hold on to my top

place finishing with high scores. It was a great feeling to

win a competition at international level.

Match Report- Girls hockey 19/10/11

The King’s School 1st XI 3 – 0 TDA (King’s goals by Pip Meakin, Ellie Beaumont

and Poppy Tovey)

The girls’ first victory of the season arrived in the last game before Christmas,

and as a surprise against local rivals TDA.

King’s started positively, maintained possession from push back and began to

press, winning two short corners in succession with the second converted

efficiently by captain Pip Meakin. This early lead gave the team the confidence

to continue to play high up the pitch- a well organised team meant the forwards

and midfield kept the pressure on the opposition defence and intercepted any

attempt they made at clearing their lines.

A lack of TDA organisation showed for much of the first half with just one

opponent defend-ing the D at times. This was quickly taken advantage of when a

quick ball into the D allowed Ellie Beaumont to knock past the keeper into the

goal. The balance of possession swayed during before the break, with King’s

defending for short periods but at half time the away team were leading 2-0.

In order to stay ahead after the break, King’s needed to stay strong when

defending. Maintaining the attack prevented TDA testing the defence often and

even had a few one-on-ones with the goalkeeper, some of which left even

players bewildered as to how it had not gone in. When Poppy Tovey scored the

third goal, King’s were home and dry. Loose keeper kit on the TDA goalkeeper in

the dying minutes of the game drew an early blow to the full time whistle,

despite the protests of both sides.

King’s did dominate the whole game, with TDA attacking for short periods, but

the clean sheet proves credit to the effectiveness of their defence and the score

line shows the capabilities of the forwards. A joint Player of the Match was

awarded to Pam Jacobs for her support across the pitch and flair on the ball and

Poppy Tovey for her forward play. The whole team deserves praise though for

their best performance of the season so far and look to beyond the Christmas

break for their next victory. An excellent Christmas present for Miss Naismith.

By Declan Shepherd

Team: Penny Ford (GK), Sarah Sissons, Lulu Radjenovic, Jess Jones, Susannah

Franks, Pip Meakin, Georgia Harrison, Archie Radjenovic, Leah Manning, Pam

Jacobs, Katherine Amps, Poppy Tovey, Ellie Beaumont.

Sailing

Ben Jennings 8TGR and Ciaran Randeria 8CJM

have both been selected for Zone squad places on

the RYA Zone training system. There are four

zones in the UK, Ben has been reselected for

North Zone and Ciaran has been selected for East

Zone, both in the Topper class. The 12 places in

each zone are highly contested and the selection

process is demanding on many levels which

means that being selected is a great honour.

"The purpose of the RYA Zone/Home Country

Squad Programme is to feed talented sailors into

the RYA National Junior Squad Programme at the

appropriate age and ability to enable them to

succeed at World and European Championships at

Junior and Youth level Junior and Youth pathway”.

(ultimately the 4 Zone squads are the first step on

the route to sail for Team GB in the Olympics.)

Josh Holroyd , Yr9 and Carys Randeria 10DJM both

missed out on Zone selection as they are at the

upper limits of the age range but both have been

selected for the Eastern Region Area

Development Squad.

All four sailors will be attending between 9 and 12

training sessions.

Barbados Hockey Tour

We have 20 girls signed up for the Hockey Tour to

Barbados in July 2013. Fundraising for this has made an

excellent start, with over £700 pounds in the pot from

just two events!

Our most recent fundraising has been helping with the

refreshments at the “As you like it” drama

performances. From both performances we managed

to raise £183. Many thanks to Mrs Harris, Mrs Amps

and Mrs Radjenovic for their help with this.

Fundraising will carry on after the Christmas break with cake sales, more bag packing and washing the police cars.

Many thanks for all involved in making this tour happen.

Cross Country

Team Results

Year 7 Girls – 1st

Year 7 Boys – 1st

Year 8/9 Girls -1st

Year 8/9 Boys -4th

Year 10/11 Girls – 1st

Year 10/11 Boys - 2nd

Senior Girls – 1st

Individual top finishers

Year 8/9 Boys - Ollie Bowling - 1st

Year 7 Boys – Alex Chymbai – 3rd

Senior Girls – Eleanor Smith – 1st, Emma Randall 2nd

Bend it Like Steele - Lizzie talent spotted for England set up

Elizabeth Steele, a Year 10 pupil, is a member of Cam-bridge Girl’s Centre of

Excellence for Football. Lizzie currently plays for the U15 side and has recently been

selected to attend an England Development Camp after being selected as one of the

country’s best players in her age group. Lizzie manages to balance her school

commitments as well as travelling to Cambridge twice a week to train and for

matches. This is a fantastic opportunity for Lizzie to showcase her natural sporting

ability and we wish her all the best. We have all seen Lizzie in action whilst in

Germany and she certainly had a natural flare for football. Please see the Sports

Council board in the sports hall for photographs of Lizzie in action and further

updates on her progress.

London Marathon

Mr Harrison, Mrs Amps and Miss Naismith are in training for

the London Marathon on the 22nd April 2012. Many of you will

have seen them running during a lunch time, with the training

gradually becoming more intense.

They are currently running 17 miles around Rutland Water and

hope to build on this from Christmas with the help of Mr Baker.

The chosen charity they are running for is “Hope for Children”.

A charity set up to help disadvantaged children. If you would

like to sponsor them please contact via email.

Bend it Like Steele - Lizzie talent spotted for England set up

Trampolining

The Kings School pupils all had a very successful day at the Eastern Region Trampoline Competition

yesterday.

Matthew Gladders started the day off with two top class routines to become the Elite U19 Boys

Eastern Region Champion (his 3rd successive Elite Eastern Region Title).

Luke Haggerty then competed in the Novice U15 boys group. He certainly stood out as one of the

best in the group and this was reflected in his high scores earning him 1st place to gain the Novice

Under 15 boys Title.

Ciaran Randeria finished off the day in the Novice U13 boys group. Ciaran also performed two

strong routines and finished 3rd in his group.

As the top three in each group go through to the next round (in Shrewsbury), all three boys have

qualified for a place in the next round in January.

Nettetal Sports Exchange

Over 30 pupils took part in the sporting events over both weekends of the Nettetal Exchange.

The sporting competitions began at the school field on the Saturday with both girls and boys

football. The competition then moved to the sports hall with boys table tennis and girls badminton

in the afternoon. Aside from the girls football, the results were fairly even and put us in good stead

for the away matches.

All pupils performed well due to not playing indoor football as much as the German teams and

throughout the 2nd half of the games, improvements could be seen.

We look forward to introducing hockey and rugby to the Germans during our next exchange!

Hopefully the results may be a little different!

Sp

orts Co

uncil

BM

X Train

ing

The Sports Council took part in a BMX training session led by

Sky’s Living For Sports athlete mentor– Mike Mullen. The af-

ternoon started off with a presentation by Mike on his ex-

periences of being an elite athlete and was followed by a practi-

cal session on the bikes. Mrs Amps and Miss Naismith were first

to jump on! Mike will be visiting the pupils again in March .

Match Report- 6th Form

Mixed Hockey 07/12/11

The King’s (The Cathedral) School 1 – 1 Jack Hunt

(King’s goal by Declan Shepherd)

After the Yr11 defeat to Jack Hunt earlier in the year,

many were looking at a resounding King’s victory in

this highly anticipated fixture which, in the end, failed

to reach expectations as far as the score line was

concerned.

Battling the buffeting and clouting conditions was just

as challenging as the game itself, especially after a

prolonged and chilling warm up. Losing possession

straight from the push back, potentially as the result

of over confidence, did not bode well for the King’s

team. The home side did not let this set back affect

them, and quickly regained control of the game, set-

ting camp in the opponents D with a flurry of long cor-

ners in the opening exchange. It proved impossible to

break through the army of defenders (on many occa-

sion did Jack Hunt have all their players in their half,

with the majority set in the D).

Only hitting the post once and a few wasted short

corners were the fruits of the team’s effort. Playing so

deep in Jack Hunt territory always left the defence

exposed to a counter-attack however some good last

ditch tackles maintained the deadlock at half time:

0-0.

The half time talk was brief; the King’s players knew

what they had to do- keep it simple and find the easy

pass. A more dominant second half performance kept

the home side anchored in the opposing 22. There

was good link up play between the wingers and

forwards which, in addition to her solid tackles,

earned Leah Manning Player of the Match. It was this

combina-tion of wingers and forwards that led to the

shelled cross from ex-Jack Huntee Kelsey Brace which

Declan Shepherd bundled over the line: 1-0 King’s.

King’s maintained the pressure from the restart and

several ineffective short corners were easily cleared

despite variations in routine. This turned out to be

costly after a break by one Jack Hunt player ran down

the middle of the pitch and scored. 1-1.

Despite re-establishing possession and pressure, it

was too little too late to the team who could not

convert any of their many short corners (King’s did not

concede a single short corner which proves credit to

the defence). Jobber Stanbridge also deserves credit

on his hockey debut.

King’s will learn from this unexpected result and hope

to provide more clinical hockey in future fixtures.

By Declan Shepherd

Team: Archie Radjenovic C, Bryan Yau, Callum Rigby,

Cassie Rigby, Danny Caruso, Declan Shepherd, Jess

Jones, Jobber Stanbridge, Jocelyn Hurcombe, Kelsey

Brace, Leah Manning, Lulu Radjenovic, Natasha

Fallowfield (GK), Penny Ford (GK), Sam Biccarino.

Monday Year 7 Hockey 1:20-1:50pm

Year 8 Netball 1:30-2:00pm

Year 9 Girls Hockey 4-5pm

Sixth Form Netball 4-5pm

Rugby 4-5pm

Tuesday Year 8 Hockey 1:20-1:50pm

Year 7 Netball 1:30-2:00pm

Year 7 and 8 Hockey– 4-5pm

Rugby 4-5pm

Wednesday Indoor Hockey– 7:45- 8:20am

9-11 Netball Practice 1:30-2:00pm.

Boys Hockey 4-5pm

Thursday Table Tennis– 1:30-2pm Year 10 & 11 Hockey 4-5pm

Friday All years Trampolining

Sports Practices -January 2012