The impact of the pandemic has been wide ranging and is still clearly present despite some time passing by. However, last week marked a historic event at Etone. We were delighted to be able to welcome back our Sports Day after a two year absence.

With busy schedules for venues and schools, like many, we have had to develop our strategies for staging events. Therefore this year was extremely special. Not only were we able to host classic favourites such as Pursuit and Tug of War, we were able to utilise our various on site venues and deliver a diverse and fresh take on sports day.

Starting on Tuesday our Year 9 and 10 pupils began proceedings with a ‘pep talk’ form their respective Houses. Eager to break away form the shadow of defeat in the past Griffin were focused on being a true underdog story, Dragon as usual entered the day as favourites to win, Phoenix hoping to capitalise on the change to events had prepared their table tennis team well and Centaur put forth an impressive football team for both the boy and girls events. Although a tough day for all contenders the results were as follows:

Centaur                270pts

Dragon                 250pts

Phoenix                220pts

Griffin                   180pts

On Friday our Year 7 and 8 pupils had the chance to bring home the glory and impact the overall results for the title. Going into this day our Heads of House issue rallying cries to either consolidate, improve their positions, or turn around their fortunes. Mr Astall hopeful to continue his trajectory towards gold, Mr Baggot eager to leapfrog from third and straight into first, Mr Khan passionate about maintaining the winning streak Dragon began at the end of day 1 into Day 2 and Miss Bailey striving to show that our only non-sport Head of House could best all that PE had to offer.

At the end of Day 2 the following were the Year 7 and 8 results:

Dragon                 530pts

Griffin                   380pts

Centaur                320pts

Phoenix                310pts

Across the two days, our pupils showed the strengths of their characters displaying all of our Employability Skills such as; Teamwork and Resilience and our Values. A particular highlight of the day being the sportsmanship shown when due to an error by both teams a rounders match was called a draw.

The full list of sports were as follows:

Netball, Football, Dodgeball, Benchball, Danish Longball, Team Pursuit, Tug of War, Table Tennis, Curling, Handball, Basketball, Rounders, Softball, Diamond Cricket, Ultimate Frisbee and Just Dance.

It was lovely to see pupils having the opportunity to work together more than what, perhaps usual athletics enables and it was fantastic to see the enjoyment our pupils had with taking part in the different sports on offer.

We are defiantly excited to see where our Sports Day will take us next year, who knows perhaps even Quidditch?

All that is left to say is a massive well done to Dragon who have done it again and with a 1-2 place in 7/8 and 9/10 respectively and reign supreme for Sports Day once again.

The final totals were:

Dragon                 780pts

Centaur                590pts

Phoenix                530pts  

Griffin                   500pts