Sporting Excellence
Platinum Award for Sports Provision
At Eastnor we have two sports specialists in our teaching team. Mrs Dawe and Mr Marchant work together to lead the subject and bring a wealth of expertise and experience. All children in school, from 4 years old to 11 years old, benefit from PE lessons taught by our specialist teachers and sport has a high profile in our school.
We are delighted to announce that Eastnor Primary School has been awarded the prestigious School Games Platinum Award for the 2023/2024 academic year. This comes after seven consecutive years of achieving Gold. This is no mean feat, as a Platinum is only awarded to a handful of schools nationwide, who have consistently achieved Gold in previous years and have shown consistent dedication to sport and activity in their region.
The School Games Mark is a Government led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.
With a total of 100% of our children competing in inter and intra school competitions this year, we are extremely proud of our young people for their dedication to all aspects of school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our competitions possible.
As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil criteria in the areas of participation, competition, workforce and clubs, and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded this year.
Sports Provision
Eastnor are pleased to participate in so much sport, both within curriculum time and also at extra-curricular events. Within the curriculum, children are given a minimum of 2 hours of quality PE teaching each week. Within the school week, many sports clubs across both Key Stages are offered, including hockey, tag rugby, football, netball, fitness and conditioning in the winter, and then cricket, rounders and athletics in the summer. We also have professional practitioners and club leaders that come to the school to deliver top-quality sports clubs.
Every year, we welcome coaches from Herefordshire FA to run football workshops with all of our children, from Reception right up to our oldest children in Year 6. Staff are also given coaching tips from the football experts for their own professional development, and clubs are run in lunchtimes for children who want to gain extra skill in this sport. We have also welcomed professionals from Malvern Tennis Club to work with all children in the summer on their tennis skills.
Eastnor maintain strong links with their Pyramid High School; John Masefield. We attend meetings every year to talk about what events in sport they can host. It is a great opportunity for the children to connect with the secondary school and make use of their facilities. At John Masefield we take part in the Herefordshire School Games heats in netball, hockey, sportshall athletics, tennis and rounders. We also take children to compete in their cross-country event, The Trudge every year, as well as attending inclusion events that look at experiencing new sports such as Try Golf, Tchoukball and Table Tennis. Our links with John Masefield also run into our Family Sports Day. Held at Eastnor Cricket Club, we welcome sports leaders from the High School to help run a successful sports event for our school. It is fantastic to take children across all key stages to play on the John Masefield facilities and improve their confidence across a range of sports.
Our school believe in the values of community, and with this in mind, we participate in many sporting events with our local cluster of primary schools and other local community organisations. We take part in football, tag rugby and netball leagues run by Ledbury Primary School, and always take teams to the Pyramid Football and Netball tournaments, and a rounders tournament in the summer. We also take part in the Primary tag-rugby festival run by Ledbury RFC.
As well as all of this, we make good use of the links on our own estate, and thanks to a wonderful partnership with Eastnor Cricket Club and Eastnor Castle, we hold our very own cluster Cricket Tournament and an Orienteering event each year.