End of Year Sports Report 2022-23

This year has been a busy one the sporting front, with Holcombe students taking part in a number of competitions, leagues and events. Term 1 saw the onset of the inter-school Medway football league, with each team in years 7, 8 & 9 gaining a number of notable victories both at home and away. Approximately 40 students represented Holcombe as part of the year 7 football squad which is a testament to the amount of talented players in the year group. Notable mentions should be given to Caleb Moore, Ezra Hatega and Ryan Barber for their consistent levels of effort and high quality performances.

November was a particularly busy month with both the MSG badminton and MSG handball competitions taking place on consecutive weeks. In both competitions students were able to demonstrate not only their physical capabilities but also their teamwork, sportsmanship and effort levels. All of these virtues came to the fore for the KS3 badminton team who finished as winners of the competition.

In early December two teams from Holcombe participated in the MSG futsal competition at Medway park. Both sides fought superbly against 12 Medway based schools, in what proved to be an impressive outcome considering the high quality of opposition the students faced throughout the day. Positively, a number of opposing schools praised both the U13 and U15 Holcombe sides for their resilience, team work and determination off the ball and their creativity on the ball. Subsequently both Holcombe sides were renowned for not conceding many whilst scoring a range of high-quality goals in every fixture they played. At the end of the competition, the U13 Holcombe side comfortably gained third position after stringing together a number of impressive victories whilst the U15 side unfortunately missed out on second and first spot by goal difference only.

In May, a team of students from year 7 & year 8 represented Holcombe at the inaugural Medway School Games orienteering competition. Despite this being a new activity to the majority of the students they quickly got to grips with the skills required and showed tremendous teamwork to navigate their way around two tough courses around Capstone park. Once the times for completing both courses were combined the year 8 team finished in 6th place out of 14 teams overall whilst the year 7 team received a well-deserved medal for finishing runners up.

The District athletics competition in June saw Holcombe students return with a plethora of medals of all colours, including gold medals for Neo Thomas (year 9, 100m), Dillon Gregory (year 9, 1500m), Jason Nsirim (year 9, discus), and Bernard Crosland (year 9, shot put). After an intense day of competition the Holcombe team finished with a total of 265 points to finish in 4th place, just three points off of the podium. As has been the case all year, the students who took part were a credit to the school and should be extremely proud of their efforts.

In addition to the competitions and leagues, students have also taken part in recreational extra-curricular clubs this year in greater numbers than we have seen for several years. In particular, Gym club has proved extremely popular and it has been a pleasure to witness students working both independently and interdependently to improve their levels of health and fitness. Some students have gone above and beyond with their attendance and should be congratulated for their commitment to school sport and the Holcombe community – this is most certainly the case for year 7 students Dylan Drabble, Jude Simmons, and Camron Harding, as well as Chris Bennett, Izaiah Chaffey, and Aaron Jenkins in year 8. We will continue to offer a diverse range of extra-curricular clubs in the next academic year and we look forward to welcoming even more students to attend.