There may be no fixtures against other schools for the moment, but our sports department has been keeping the girls on their toes in preparation for the long-awaited return to competitive sport!

This term the sports department has been running 42 clubs over 12 sports, with 14 regular morning clubs, 18 lunchtime and 10 after school.

On average, 250 girls attend a sports club before school, 300 at lunchtime and 400 after school!

We are also taking part in two virtual competitions this term, the Willow Tree School Sports Partnerships Virtual and the London Youth Games Cross Country competitions.

The Willow Tree Sports Programme is a combination of personal best and competitive challenges, with NHEHS taking part in rugby, football, hockey and cross country. Cross-country will be participation based with points awarded based on the number of entries to try to get as many people to run as possible, while football, rugby and hockey will be competitive.  Year 7s will be taking part during their lessons while Year 8 will be participating in hockey club.

The football challenge has three parts – shooting practice, partner passing and dribbling. For rugby, there will be challenges based around target throws, target throw and catch rallies, while for hockey, girls will have to demonstrate hitting a target within various zones, push passing and the Indian dribble.

We ran the Cross Country challenge last month, with Minna, Natasha and Ella leading the way in Years 7, 8 and 9 respectively. In addition on the running front, Mrs Thomas holds her strength and conditioning club on Monday and running club on Thursdays to try and keep the girls fitness up, with around 14 girls from years 7-10 that go each week, despite the 7.30 am start! 

The London Youth Games usually hold their flagship opening event at this time of year, with thousands of young Londoners from all the London boroughs descending on Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath to determine the capital’s fastest runners.  Several NHEHS’ runners have represented the borough in ‘Team Ealing’ in recent years, but with lockdown measures in place and sporting events all over the world affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s London Youth Games’ season opener is going virtual, although they are hoping to hold a real event in the New Year.

The London Youth Games are taking cross country virtual with the launch of the Nike x LYG Virtual Cross Country competition, an exciting new event designed to keep young Londoners active during lockdown. Starting on Saturday 21st November until Sunday 6th December, all young Londoners will have the chance to take part, representing their boroughs in a London-wide competition across four different age groups: U11, U13, U15 and U17. Participants must complete a set distance, depending on their age group, and submit their time via the London Youth Games website to earn points for their borough.  Points are scored for participating and performance so all young Londoners can help their borough climb the leader board. Participants who upload proof of time over their set distance will be entered into a leaderboard for their age group. The winning borough and leaderboards for each age group will be announced after the competition’s closing date. 

We have been encouraging as many girls as possible to take part by completing their runs, download the LYG app from Londonyouthgames.org then submit their results, sharing their run on Twitter with us @nhehs_sport and tagging #ThisIsLYG. If you need any more information, please contact the PE department.

Good luck and let’s get Team Ealing in the top 10!

Finally, a big congratulations to Kajal in Year 7 for achieving her Brown Belt in Karate! A fantastic achievement!