It has been a record breaking summer for the athletes of Bridgewater Prep in the ISA National Virtual Athletics Championships of 2021. Over 500 athletes from 26 schools around the country competed for 444 different awards, ranging from 9 years of age up to 18 years. The top placed schools from each region are as follows;
East Anglia- Finborough School
London North Avon House
London South Oakhyrst Grange
London West Claires Court
Midlands Adcote School
The North Bridgewater Prep
South West Stonar School
We are delighted to have finished in first place as a team in the Northern ISA region and to be able to celebrate so many individual performances form our athletes. The phrase “you have to be in it to win it” is certainly true, but this should not dilute the success of the team at all. Bridgewater finished in 8th place overall from the 17 schools that entered the competition nationally. We have incredible 31 individual Northern winners and an amazing 9 gold medals nationally! There are far too many wonderful individual and relay performances to mention in the team, therefore a full list of events, positions and results for each competitor is shown in the attached document.
We are delighted to announce that Bridgewater Prep VI pupil Alfie, has been shortlisted by ISA Sport for their prestigious ‘Athlete of the Term’ award.
Alfie is such a unique and phenomenal talent, with an outstanding range of skills and attributes across a range of sports.
Alfie is an exceptional athlete, with a rare combination of speed and endurance, enabling him to set school records in sprinting and cross country.
Alfie is a former ISA winner of the 60m and the winner of the ISA Northern Cross Country Championships. During this term Alfie has set multiple school records and in Virtual Athletic Competitions against other schools has won every event entered. In the current ISA Virtual Athletics Championships Alfie won gold nationally in the 600m and the cricket ball throw. Alfie has produced times and distances that would have also seen him reach ISA National Finals in 80m sprint, 150m throw and the long jump.
However, the real strength of Alfie lies within invasion games, where he is on another level. In his final term at Bridgewater Alfie will leave knowing he was pivotal in securing ISA finals in cricket and the National 5 a side competitions for the first time in the school’s history. He is an inspiration to team mates, with his commitment and determination to do well for himself and his team. Alfie is a role model, a leader, a coach to his peers and has a tactical awareness beyond his years.
Throughout lock down and during the current term, Alfie has combined his studies with his commitments to Manchester City FC, where Alfie has been an Academy player since 2015. He currently captains the Academy team and has maintained his rigorous training programme with his school studies throughout the term.
We are delighted to nominate Alfie for the ISA Athlete of the Term Award, and can see no more fitting way to acknowledge his achievements in sport and for the delightful young man he has become.
We hope our school community can support his nomination and cast a vote for him via Twitter.
To vote, please follow the link below and RT the original tweet before the deadline of 10am on 2nd July:
Your @isaschools Athlete of the Term is open for voting!
Alfie from @BridgewaterScho is a talented and highly motivated athlete, he needs your votes!
It was Prep IV’s turn to experience the pleasures that Haigh Hall had to offer on Thursday, as they made the trip through the rain from Worsley to Wigan. Fortunately, the drizzle stopped as we arrived and we enjoyed a day of activities in dry conditions.
First up were the rope course, the gladiator wall and the climbing wall. This was a challenge for many of our children who have not completed these type of activities before – but certainly one that the children rose to. By the end, many were completing additional challenges on the rope course: backwards, no hands, eyes closed… It was fantastic entertainment seeing the children complete the course and challenges.
After lunch, it was time to try our hand at archery. It would probably be true to say that Robin Hood need have nothing to fear, but once again the children rose to the challenge and by the end several were finding the bull’s eye with their arrows. From there, we tried our hand at den building. Split into teams, there were certainly several interesting constructions – suffice to say, it was probably a good idea that the rain had stopped!
It has been a fabulous week of relay races amongst Prep I-VI classes. Every day, each class has had a 45 minute PE lesson in support of the Youth Sports Trust National Week of Sport.
Teams of five have competed in a different daily relay race in their respective House Teams. The races over 5km, 25 laps of the Bridgewater track included a sprint race, a hoop race, a skipping race, an egg n spoon race and an obstacle course race. In total each team has run 25 km (125 laps) with everyone running a combined total of 5000m or 3.2 miles!
The children have been fantastic and have had lots of fun as well as developing fitness levels, without even knowing it! The week finished with a Dodgeball Tournament for each class, giving everyone a chance to show off the “5 Ds of Dodgeball “….. dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge! The National Week of Sport has focused on everyone being “Back Together” after a year of disruption like no other. Thank you to all the children for embracing each challenge so whole heartedly and we look forward to more exciting sporting adventures in the not too distant future.
While the creative juices of the Prep department children are flowing as they design their bee friendly gardens for BBC Radio 2, Mr. Altdorf has launched a competition for children to continue this and create a sports design for the Independent Schools Association’s front programme covers for the forthcoming year.
Entry details, and terms and conditions are below – Mr. Altdorf would like to have these designs back by 2nd July please. We did have a national finalist the last time that we entered this type of competition, so Mr. Altdorf would like to continue this successful streak!
Pupils are invited to design the front covers for the ISA National Sports Programmes 2021/2022 and the logo for the ISA Festival of Sport 2022.
Deadline Friday 2nd July 2021. Please submit one form per entry.
The winning image will be selected for the A5 front cover for the 2021-2022 National Swimming, Athletics, Cross Country, Triathlon, Football, Hockey, Tennis and Netball Championships programmes. Copies will go to the event spectators – more than 1,200 of them in total. The logo will be the official logo for the ISA Festival of Sport 2022.
Each competitor may submit one entry only per category. This competition is only open to current pupils of ISA Member schools. • The image must be portrait in JPEG or PNG format. • Text must not be included. • Maximum of 9 entries per school.
Eligibility: Schools can submit a maximum of nine entries in total, spread across the categories below. One entry only per pupil per category. Competition open to all age groups. We encourage schools to run their competition in house and to submit their best entries.
Competition open to Members’ schools only.
• Categories – Athletics – Swimming – Triathlon – Tennis – Football – Hockey – Netball – Cross Country – ISA Festival of Sport logo Brief for the logo: ISA Sport will be celebrating the 2022 Commonwealth Games by hosting an exciting Festival of Sport for all ISA students to enjoy a variety of sports over one weekend next summer.
This new, unique competition is a great opportunity for students to create a Festival of Sport logo to be used throughout the whole event. We could be showcasing YOUR design on prizes, clothing, marketing material and much more.
• It is optional for you to add ‘Festival of Sport’
• Colours may include red, white, blue, grey, black
• Please submit the image as JPEG/PNG only
• The logo can be a drawing or created digitally however no existing images are allowed
Logo design tips – make it relevant, keep it simple and ensure it’s memorable. We can’t wait to see your best creations!
• Entries – All entries must be the participants’ original works, which have never been published. – Digital drawing is allowed. – Entries for the covers must be portrait ONLY; no text is allowed. – Entries must be submitted as JPEG or PNG file only.
HOW TO ENTER: PLEASE FORWARD TO MR ALTDORF BEFORE FRIDAY 2ND JULY FOR SELECTION PURPOSES!
Well, not quite, although we were looking for a dramatic intro! It seems a while since we’ve been on a Prep trip and it was with great excitement that the children from Prep V and VI departed in a fleet of minibuses for Haigh Hall. Once there, we headed in different directions: Prep VI to the high ropes and Prep V to the bush craft centre, located in the old zoo (who knew Haigh Hall had one of those?) in the woods (and of course, after a picnic lunch, the roles were reversed as the classes swapped activities).
For the first time at Haigh Hall, some of our children really overcame their fears as, after a low rope course to ‘get their eye in’ they climbed to the top of the tower for the high course. Notable moments include Shayan trying to extricate from a tangle of ropes at the top; Lucy missing the cargo nets at the end of the zip line and dangling in mid air; too many children to mention overcoming their fear of heights to complete all or part of the courses. In the bush craft areas, the children used tarpaulins and branches to create their own weather proof shelters, and then used flints and sticks to light a fire to boil a billy can – sadly, Mr. Rooney forgot the teabags!
The weather was kind to us too, which was lovely – it was great to get back to a degree of normality once again.
During the summer term Prep III-VI classes have focused on athletics in their PE lessons each week. The result of such a targeted drive on this sport has been an upsurge in personal bests for individuals and team successes in a competition against other schools. The overall results are in from the Lady Barn House Virtual Athletics competition and Bridgewater have come out on top in a host of events. The competition involved six schools, Lady Barn House, Manchester High School for Girls, Bootham Junior School, The Queen’s School, Tower College and Bridgewater Prep. Each school had to complete four events with all competitors scoring points for their school, therefore every child really did matter! The events were held over four weeks and consisted of the 600m run, a Standing Long Jump, a Rounder/Cricket Ball Throw and 10m shuttle sprints.
The Standing Long Jump proved to be the most successful event for Bridgewater athletes, with four teams winning overall. Prep III, V and VI boys won their event as did Prep III girls, with Maia, Raj, Johnny and Esme winning the individual events. The Prep V boys, Raj, Anton and Alex took all three medal spots in the event, whilst Seb took third in the Prep VI event and Isabelle of Prep II took third in the Prep III event!
Bridgewater had similar successes in the 10m shuttle sprints, with the same teams winning this event. Prep III, V and VI boys and Prep III girls showed they can run and jump with equal prowess and posting some impress individual scores along the way. Alfie, Seb and Luca battled it out for top spot in a closely fought internal competition that saw them take 1, 2 and 3 in the overall competition. A similar story emerged in the Prep III event with Patrick finishing in between two Prep II ‘speedsters’, Reuben and winner Benjamin. Molly won the Prep VI girls, Maia won the Prep III girls race, with Isabelle again in third spot, whilst San and Tommy Jack finished runners up in their respective events.
The final two events were somewhat tougher for Bridgewater athletes in general, but it again there was individual successes of note. The Prep VI boys won the event with some consistent throwing from all the boys in general, but a brilliant cricket ball throw of over 46m from Alfie beat all other competitors by over 10 meters. The Prep III boys narrowly missed out on the win, but can take pride in a good second place and we now know the areas to develop in athletics moving forward.
In the final week of the competition, everyone had to take on the 600m run for a third and final time to try and beat their previous times. In the team events, Prep III, V and VI boys remarkably won the team event once again, whilst the Prep IV boys put on their best team performance to finish in second place. Sam won the Prep III race, San won the Prep IV race, Alex and Anton shared victory in the Prep V race and Alfie won the race in 1min 56 secs, 23 seconds faster than any other runner from all six schools. Maia again topped a fabulous individual performance by taking third in the Prep III girls’ race, whilst Molly just missed out on a podium spot in the Prep VI race to also cap a superb individual set of results. All in all, the competition provided a focus for our athletics this term and we would like to thank our hosts Lady Barn House for organizing the event. The competition amongst classes and individuals across the age groups ensured that everyone was driven to try and do their very best in lessons. It will be interesting to see how Bridgewater will do in the ISA Virtual Athletics Regional and National Finals this week. Watch this space…..!
Radio 2 have joined forces with the RHS and NHS to launch their Big Bee Challenge. Children are asked to design a bee-friendly garden for young hospital patients, with the chance for the winning entry to see their garden built by the RHS.
Entry forms and details are available from the Radio 2 site here: Big Bee Challenge but they have also been posted into each Google Classroom for the relevant classes. Parents can upload entries at home, or they can be brought back into school to Mr. Suter.
By now, your sunflowers should be proudly growing out in your gardens. We love this picture of Lachlan with his, which is nearly as tall as him! How is your sunflower doing? We’d love to see more of your photos.
Prep I have really enjoyed their topic on Africa this term. They were given a homework task to choose one of the 54 countries in Africa and create a poster about that country. The posters were returned to school after half term and WOW what an amazing job they have done! The children each had the opportunity to present their posters to the class and we all learned some amazing facts about the different countries. A great job Prep I.
