Lockdown sports
Sports are important not just for physical fitness , but also for a sense of wellbeing . With our students scattered around the world , under various lockdown regimes , some with limited access to outdoors and exercise opportunities , we were keen to keep them active and involved .
One way we did this was through a series of virtual fixtures with other schools , which added some competitive spice and gave them a goal to work towards . Students were asked to represent Sevenoaks by running or cycling as far as they could . The results were compiled and the school with the longest average distance per student was declared the winning school .
Through May and June , we had a series of fixtures and we were delighted by our participation rates , which ranged from 115 for both the first fixture against Sutton Valence and the last one against Brighton College to 246 against KCS Wimbledon and 308 for the 1.5km invitational .
The total number of entries in our virtual fixtures across the term was 1409 , with our students completing 7491.75km at an average of 5.78km per student . Eliza Muysken cycled over 40km for each of the fixtures against Eltham College and Sutton Valence , and 51.34km against KCS Wimbledon . Other great 40km + cycling performances came from Jago Masters , Max Stiasny , William Kang Wolter , Maya Goodrich and Sasha Kelly , with Matt Jung clocking up 65.82km against KCS Wimbledon while Max Malkinson cycled 85.59km and Alexia Lowe 112km , both against Brighton . Several students ran more than 20km for a single event : Maddie Wise , Arthur Adcock , Oliver Weller , Felicity Yates and Jess Fleming , and Fenton Davoren with an impressive 39km run against Hampton .
We also organised a school sports day , with tutor groups competing in a variety of events , which included a 5km challenge , burpees in 60 seconds , standing long jump , and other disciplines that are rarely seen in a sports day programme !
We were also able to call on our wealth of sporting OS to arrange a series of online talks . These included Oscar Brown ( OS 2020 ) on pursuing athletic scholarships in the US ; Coco Streets ( OS 2020 ) on how she benefited from playing for the 1st XI cricket team ; Hugo Coquelin ( OS 2019 ) on committing to elite junior tennis ; international athletes Phoebe Barker ( OS 2018 ), Sabrina Sinha ( OS 2017 ) and Christopher Olley ( OS 2014 ) on their sporting and academic journeys ; Harlequins prop Kieran Sassone ( OS 2018 ) and England cricketer Tash Farrant ( OS 2014 ) on transitioning to professional sport ; former England cricketer Chris Tavaré ( OS 1973 ) on his career and time as a teacher at Sevenoaks ; Murray Barnett ( OS 1989 ) on the business of sport from his experience in such roles as Head of Sponsorship at F1 and CCO at World Rugby ; sailor Nicholas Davies ( OS 2019 ) on life as a varsity athlete at an Ivy League University ; and sports editor Ally McKay ( OS 1999 ) on sports journalism . We are grateful to them all for their time and fascinating insights .
The Summer term also saw the PE and Sport department deliver online seminars , live weekly PE classes and an array of challenges through Instagram , but nothing beat seeing some of the Year 10 and Year 12 students returning to campus to take part in various socially distanced sports activities in the last two weeks of term .
Steven Brenchley
104 SPORT REVIEW