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News Autumn Sports Round-Up 05.12.2023

Many thanks to our PE staff for a round-up of the Autumn Term sporting highlights:

The Autumn Term has been a busy and productive term for the hockey squads, with a huge number of pupils participating in fixtures.  It has been fantastic to see so many of the new Year 7s take up hockey for the first time and develop their skill level so quickly.  Across the age groups there have been some notable successes. The 1XI endured long trips away to both Norwich and Ipswich, showing fantastic resilience and team spirit. They are currently joint top of the Tier 1 national competition, which is a fantastic achievement, in a highly competitive league.  The U18 Indoor hockey team cruised through the county rounds beating Surbiton and Latymer.  Unfortunately, at the regional stages they lost out in the semi-final. The U16s have been developed as a team across their Tier 1 competition and reached the regional stages of the indoor hockey competition.  The U13s continue their fantastic progress in the ISHC plate with a brilliant 2-0-win vs Bedes sending them through to the third round.  As we head into the Christmas break the U12 and U13 squads will compete in their county tournaments; this will be a fantastic experience for all girls involved.  Across all hockey squads the teams have amassed an impressive 171 goals, with some brilliant team performances. We have also seen lots of girls playing hockey outside school at local clubs and progressing through the England Hockey system, with many players selected for county squads.  Special mention must go to Emilia Williams and Florence Byrne who have also been selected for England Hockey’s Talent Academy.  Emmie Gilbert was also selected for the U21 Junior World Cup in Chile, a brilliant achievement especially as this selection makes her only one of four school age players selected.  Monica Alcover has also been selected to train with the U16 Spanish National team, travelling to Spain twice prior to the Christmas break. Congratulations to all our hockey players on an excellent Autumn Term of hockey.

It has been a great start of the netball season thus far for the girls. As ever, the girls have got stuck in straight away with a lot of pre-season work both on and off the court, which has already contributed to some early success this term. Our U12s have had a very promising start to their first season representing Godolphin with the A team still competing in the Sister n Sport National Cup competition. They have successfully won all their matches and have progressed to the quarter-finals. The A team have also achieved gold medals at both the Harrodian and Ibstock Tournament. This is such a great achievement for the girls being a newly formed team. All six squads are enjoying multiple fixtures with many victories and continue to show commitment and hard work each week at training. The U13A team started the season by placing 9th at the Girls’ School Association netball tournament. This gave the team the opportunity to work on some fundamentals which has already paid off with the girls reaching the 3rd round of the Schools Sport Magazine National Cup competition. The U14A team set a very high bar by placing 1st at the GSA netball tournament back in September playing against many independent schools from across England. They have since gone on to qualifying at the county rounds of National Schools which will see the team compete at the regional rounds early next term. The U15A team have had many victories including qualifying in 1st place at the Middlesex Prelims which will stand them in good stead for the finals in February 2024. The U16s had a very intense season which helped the teams build on their team spirit. The A team are representing Godolphin and Latymer in the National Plate competition and are through to the quarter-finals. All the squads are very much looking forward to continuing netball as they transition into seniors next year. The U19s have done a brilliant job at balancing their academics and sporting commitments this term. They won the Harrodian tournament which was a great opportunity for working on different combinations and building bonds in units. Unfortunately, after all the hard work and sacrifices made by the A team, the girls just missed out on the chance to qualify for Regionals by losing out on goal difference and placing 3rd. The coaches and PE teachers are looking forward to seeing what next term will bring and working with such talented and driven netballers.

Our Cross Country athletes have also enjoyed a very successful term with all three Junior, Inter and Senior squads making it through to the Regional round of the XC cup; the inters placing 4th in the Harrow XC and the seniors being crowned Harrow XC champions! Also, huge congratulations to our U15 footballers who are through to round 3 of the independent schools FA U15 Cup, and our senior basketball players who were runners-up in the legacy 3×3 tournament.

In the pool our senior swimming squad were placed 6th in freestyle and 7th in the medley at the National Schools relay championships finals. This was an absolutely amazing achievement against the top swim schools in the country.

There have been other individual sporting achievements of note including Asees Sangha’s selection for the England U15 women’s football squad; Ines Goyarrola who is an U14 fencer who has been selected by British Fencing to represent Great Britain as part of the U17 Cadet National Squad at a European Circuit; Elspeth von Sponeck who was 4th at the Horse of the Year Show in the 1.25m Fox Final; Izzy Brett who has been invited to join the England Rugby Girls’ Developing Player Programme (ERDPP) at Middlesex Rugby; and Winnie Jewell who has been selected for the cricket emerging player programme for Sunrisers. Winnie is also an U14 player and one of about 20 girls in the U18 squad!

Our rowers and cricketers are continuing to train hard over the winter months ready for their seasons to get properly underway. We look forward to following the progress of all of our elite sportswomen and athletes in the months to come.