We’ve had loads of great sports stuff going on this half-term. We’ve been keeping the school’s Twitter feed up to date with lots of details, and keeping everyone in the know through our newsletter, but now it’s time for one jam-packed blog post to update everyone on what all of our fantastic sports stars have been up to!
We started off our sporting year with a football match against St Cyprian’s Greek Orthodox Primary School on our MUGA on Thursday, 20th September 2018. This was the first match this year in the Croydon Schools’ FA league, which we take part in every year, and is very competitive! Unfortunately, this wasn’t the best start for our footballers, who lost this match 5-1. However, this gave us lots of things to work on in our squad training sessions every Friday.
Our Player of the Match in this game was our amazing goalkeeper, Daniel from Opal Class. Daniel flew across the goal several times to make some impossible saves and saved the team from about ten more goals! A special mention also goes to Malik from Tourmaline Class, who got our first goal of the season in this game!
Our Year 4&5 tag-rugby stars were up next, on Friday, 21st September 2018, travelling to Old Whitgiftian’s Rugby Club in South Croydon for a tag-rugby festival hosted by Whitgiftian Junior Rugby. This was a really fun event, with skills sessions taking place and then a competition. Our rugby team played really well, but narrowly missed out on a place in the semi-finals! A special mention goes to our most thoughtful and hardworking player of the day, Jakub from Coral Class.
On Wednesday, 3rd October 2018 and Thursday, 11th October 2018, we had the Croydon School Sports Partnership’s Cross-Country competition over at Lloyd Park. This was for children from all year groups from Year 1 to Year 6 and, as always, we had some absolutely amazing performances.
Ava and Kyra, both from Aquamarine Class, were particularly outstanding performers on the day, finishing fifth and sixth!
Special mentions go to all of our top finishers, including Rosie, Lilian, Aisha and Riannon from Year 1, who finished eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh respectively, as well as Adonai and Lucie from Year 2, who also finished fifth and sixth.
The Year 3 & 4 races, however, were our pièce de résistance.
Well done to our team of Year 3 Girls, who finished in first place as a team, scoring 59. The scoring team consisted of Nyla from Jet Class, who finished 11th, and Keyanna, Kaiyan and Ava from Pearl Class, who finished 15th, 16th and 17th respectively.
The Year 4 girls clinched second place with a fantastic team score of 92! The scoring team consisted of: Alyssa from Moonstone, Ella from Opal and Ryeona and Abigael from Turquoise Class.
The Year 4 boys scored the highest score of the day for Heavers Farm, with an amazing team score of 43, putting them in first place for this race as well! A huge well done to our team of James and Isaak from Moonstone Class and Mohammed and Daniel from Opal Class.
Our Runner of the Day award has to go to Mohammed (Opal Class) who was in first place for the majority of the Year 4 boys race. Unfortunately, as one boy overtook him on the final straight, he tried to block and expended too much energy, narrowly losing his lead and finishing in seventh place. His fantastic running did earn his team first place, though!
On Friday 5th October 2018, we hosted St Chad’s RC Primary School for our second league football match of the season. This time, we came out on top, with a fantastic 2-0 win. Clearly, all of Mr Samuels’ and Mr Miller’s work with the team in squad training didn’t go to waste, with a much more cohesive team performance.
Getting both goals and earning himself the title of Player of the Match was Malik from Tourmaline Class, who gave spectators a masterclass in tearing up defences and scoring goals. Also, well done to Zachary from Pearl Class for his first match (despite only being 7 years old!).
Next were our girls, who had a fantastic first round of the Croydon Schools’ FA’s Girls Football League on Tuesday, 9th October 2018. We played host to teams from St Joseph’s Catholic Junior School and St James the Great RC Primary School. Sadly, the other team in our league, Oasis Academy Ryelands, could not attend on this day.
The first match, between St Joseph’s and St James the Great, was eventful, with the latter beating the former 5-0!
Next up, our own girls took on St James the Great, in a really exciting match. We had at least 5 chances on goal, which led to Kelsi, from Sapphire Class, scoring our first goal of the tournament. Then, when the referee had turned around to address the opposition coach, there was a handball by one of the St James the Great players. As our players were appealing to the coach, they left their defensive stations and, regrettably, conceded an equalising goal. This meant that the eventual scoreline was a 1-1 draw, despite an overwhelming performance from our girls.
In the final game Heavers played St Joseph’s and they really came into their own. Playing with shape and stability, all of the girls played their role on the pitch, leading to Kelsi scoring three goals and Elizabeth, also from Sapphire Class, scoring two. This 5-0 win, amazingly, matched the scoreline from St Joseph’s and St James the Great’s first game, meaning that this tournament ended with Heavers Farm and St James the Great joint top of the table.
Our Player of the Tournament was Kelsi from Sapphire Class, after her outstanding contribution of four goals on the day! A special mention goes to our captain, Elizabeth, who contributed not only goals, but a sensational performance in midfield and leading all of our players to victory.
On Thursday, 11th October 2018, whilst some children were out at the cross-country competition, some of our footballing girls took part in another super-exciting event at school. Crystal Palace FC hosted a Girls Only Football Festival on our MUGA, with a really special guest, Susanna Reid from ITV’s Good Morning Britain, in attendance. Crystal Palace TV were there to film the event, and loads of Palace for Life Foundation coaches helped to run the day. Our girls had an amazing time and learned loads of fun football skills. Thank you Crystal Palace FC and Susanna Reid!
This week, we had our final two football matches of the half-term. On Monday we took on Castle Hill Academy in the CSFA Schools’ Cup competition. This was our first away match of the season and was all the way in New Addington, so we were unsure what to expect, but this was a fantastic performance by our team. We came out victorious with a 10-0 win. In the first half, it was a race for a hat-trick, with Micah, from Aquamarine Class, and Isaak, from Moonstone Class, both scoring two goals early on. Malik, from Tourmaline Class, then joined in the race, scoring two goals himself. Micah won the race, however, by clinching his third just before the half-time whistle. In the second half, James, from Moonstone Class, joined in on the scoring, by bagging himself two goals, and Malik secured the 10-0 win with his own hat-trick in almost the last kick of the match.
Our Player of the Match for this match has to go to Micah from Aquamarine Class for his first-half hat-trick. Two special mentions go to Kevin, from Turquoise Class, and Daniel, from Opal Class, who shared goalkeeping responsibilities for this match. This was Daniel’s first foray onto the pitch for the school team, and Kevin’s first chance in goal. Well done to both for a clean sheet!
Our second match this week was on Wednesday and nearby in Thornton Heath at Ecclesbourne Primary School. We were without our two hat-trick heroes, Malik and Micah, for this match as they had prior commitments, but we still gave it a great shot. We had a fantastic first-half, taking an early lead with Kevin, from Turquoise Class, scoring a tremendous header to make it 1-0. Unluckily, a defensive oversight led to Ecclesbourne scoring an equaliser just before half-time, making it 1-1 and turning the tides of the game. Some changes to our formation and injecting some fresh legs into the game in the form of our substitutes made a small impact, but none of our chances came to anything. Elizabeth, from Sapphire Class, almost scored a goal from a great position, but didn’t take her chance quickly enough, with an Ecclesbourne player stealing the ball from her before she could score. James, from Moonstone Class, also had some fantastic chances, but unfortunately, these didn’t come to anything. Harley, our captain from Tourmaline Class, also hit the target with some great long-range shots, but Ecclesbourne’s keeper made some good saves. At the back, there were some communication issues and despite goalkeeper Daniel fromOpal Class’ best efforts (and some fantastic diving saves), we conceded three more goals. The final scoreline was 4-1 to Ecclesbourne.
Well done to James from Moonstone Class, our Player of the Match. Also well done to Kevin, from Turquoise Class for his first goal and Ken, from Opal Class, for his first game for the team.
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