Straight after Easter came the Striking and Fielding Challenge but the timing was bad for some schools so St. Oswald's brought along the whole class and went through all of the challenges which they seemed to enjoy. Hopefully next year the date will better suit a few more schools and so make it an inter-school challenge.
Base clubs (balance,agility, speed and efficiency) were started up across the cluster with equipment bought from NOF funding. 8 of our schools hoped to take part in this initiative but the equipment was late into some schools and failed to arrive at all in one. The clubs seem to have been well received and run by interested teachers who undertook some training before running the clubs. Youngsters seem to enjoy the agility ladders and attempting to balance on the discs.
Northumbria University put on a coaching session in Netball and 10 girls from St. John the Baptist's went along. They had to work hard but no doubt learnt a lot!
I delivered TOP Gym training in Birtley St. Joseph's Juniors and St. John the Baptist primary schools to 16 primary school teachers who are now fully trained in TOP Gym and are the proud owners of the new TOP Gym cards. Well done to all of them.
I also delivered TOP Gym training to NQT's across the partnership.
All of the Primary Links Teachers attende Module training and the majority were there to fill in their PESSCL forms. My grateful thanks to everyone who completed theirs without me having to chase them. For the 2nd year we had an immediate 100% response.
The TOP Link 7-a-side tournament was held at St. E. C. School for years 5&6 girls to which 3 schools sent teams (2 schools prefered the date offered by another cluster and went there instead). All participants received either gold, silver or bronze medals which were fiercely fought for.
The KS1 Playday was a great success with 140 pupils being involved in the activities run by our year 10 pupils.
Lastly, Joe from Birtley St. Joseph's ran a boys and girls 7-a-side tournament on his pitch. 6 boys and 4 girls teams had a great afternoon in the sunshine and were rewarded with certificates and a football for the school. Thank you Joe.
My thanks to all the PLT's for their loyalty, dedication and sheer hard work this year. We are losing Anna (seconded for a year) and Rosaleen (best of luck with the forthcoming birth) so need to get 2 new PLT's into shape next year!
Thanks also to all the heads who have allowed PLT's to attend the meetings and bring teams to the events. I hope you used all of your 10 days!