Netball Masterclass 2023

The netball courts were buzzing on Tuesday 7^th March as we welcomed Year 5 sports enthusiasts from three local primary schools to their Netball Masterclass. Emmer Green Primary, The Heights Primary and Caversham Primary were led by 11 of our Sports Leaders from Year 10 and our Sports Scholars from Year 10 to Upper Sixth, together with our PE Department team.

The 51 children were organised into five groups and played fun skills building games, practising drills in game strategy, catching, passing, scoring and marking before playing a mini-tournament.

Anna (Year 10) reflected, “It was helpful to go back to basics and we were learning ourselves.” Whilst her classmate Savannah added “It helped me to understand how to interact with younger students.”

The visiting students enjoyed their morning, finishing up with some delicious hot dogs and hot chocolate.Krishan from The Heights commented ‘It was very good and I learned a lot of stuff about netball.” His teacher Mrs Thomas agreed, “It was brilliant!”. Rachel Homer, PE lead at Caversham Primary, felt it was “very successful” in providing her students “with practice in netball skills and a chance to play with the other schools. The children were active all morning.” Elodie and Fred found their day out beneficial, reflecting “The coaches were good” and “It was incredible” respectively. The group from Emmer Green also enjoyed themselves, with their teacher Michele Page adding “The children were fully engaged and enthusiastic throughout. It was brilliantly organised and executed.” Her pupils only found fault with the length of their experience, with many of them keen to stay for longer! Aaron concluded, “If I was telling my friend about my experience today I would have one word: fabulous!”

The masterclass follows a similar event earlier in the term which involved six schools from our Whitley partnership: The Palmer Academy, The Ridgeway Primary, Geoffrey Field Junior, Whitley Park Primary, Christ the King Primary and New Christ Church Primary. Leighton Park provide outreach events for many KS2 students in the Reading area as part of our outreach and partnerships programme. The School was recognised by the ISA for its work, winning the Award for Outstanding Local Community Involvement in 2021 and 2022.