Sport: February Round-Up

“Do you know what my favourite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” – Mike Singletary

February was a fantastic month for sport here at Truro School, but we’ll get to that in a minute. As I write this, the sun is setting on another glorious day here in Truro and as I look out of my office I can see my house. It is on fire. Which is bad. The realisation then hits me that it is my father-in-law burning the dead wood in the garden. Which is good. Phew. Things aren’t always as they seem.

The fantastic successes our pupils achieve are down to many things. Hardworking parents who drive to many practices and wait for hours. Coaches and teachers who organise training and deliver high-quality sessions for pupils to learn. Other students, who through commitment and friendship, form the teams in which everyone can share the joy of teamwork and camaraderie and hopefully, success. The players and athletes themselves, who take time out from studying and family, to represent the school and try their best for their teammates as well as personal glory. It is all equally important and I feel that we are lucky here at Truro School, to have all these qualities so obviously abundant.

It struck me that when writing this report and reflecting on this month’s achievements, how hard everyone works to make it all happen. I would like to take this opportunity to thank parents, coaches, teachers and all the pupils who represent the school, regardless of the result. It is an exciting time to be part of sport at Truro School. We have teams in national finals, in national semi-finals, individuals competing at national and international level and some students who are just starting their journey and representing the school for the first time. We have a whole range of emerging talent in multiple sports.

For a relatively small school, the diversity of our offering is astounding and should not be underestimated. Within this lies our point of difference. Our school gives all of its students the chance to compete across a variety of sports, something I believe is crucial to their development. Below are links to a couple of articles that I think you will find interesting. Forgive the overuse of the letter z, they are American…

https://www.hommenorthopedics.com/blog/the-multi-sport-versus-single-sport-athlete-12133.html

https://blogs.usafootball.com/blog/6092/nfl-draft-2018-first-round-loaded-with-multi-sport-athletes

Back to this country….

Our boys’ squash teams at KS3 and KS4 levels have made the national finals. It is an exceptional achievement, especially for the KS4 team, who had to play against boys up to 3 years older than them. The finals will take place on March 20th & 21st in Nottingham.

The U16’s girls netball team are playing in a national semi-final next week, here at Truro School. Regardless of the result, we are thrilled about their achievement and wish the girls luck.

Our cross country runners returned from the national cross country relay event with a remarkable result. Despite being one of the youngest teams, Truro finished 5th in the country! A massive thank you to all the athletes who participated and worked so hard to achieve what they did. Our head boy, Finn Birnie (pictured above) has also represented England in a recent event in Belgium. Congratulations Finn and we know how much wearing that vest means to you.

Congratulations to Anya Hocking and Izzie Leigh, who both won best girl in their respective age groups at the county finals recently. Well done girls, we are proud to have you representing our school!

In fencing news, British Fencing has published the GBR team for the upcoming European Championships in Italy and the World Championships in Poland and we were delighted to announce that almost half the sabre teams are made up of current or recent, former pupils. You can read the full article here.

In the girls’ football county cup, our U13/U14 teams played against Penryn. After only starting football this year, the main focus was for the girls to have fun, enjoy it, and focus on developing a few simple football principles. Penryn were a strong team with a number of county players but our girls went out and gave them a good run for their money, committing to every ball, moving the ball quickly to release our forwards to get in behind the defence to give us any opportunity of scoring. We worked hard and despite not winning on the day, the girls enjoyed playing and are looking forward to building on their game ready for the next match. Well done girls!

For the second year running, the girls’ and boys’ badminton teams all won the county round of the competition and will progress to the regional round later this term. You can read the full article here.

There is a full report available on MISOCS which goes into more detail about what our amazing students are getting up to. As always, if there are any questions or if you would like to get in touch, please do.

“At a young age winning is not the most important thing… the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.” – Arsene Wenger

Dan Sanderson
Director of Sport, Truro School