During the summer term, the stunning sports field at Deer Park is filled with track and field athletes, rounders matches and games of cricket; not forgetting tennis on the hard courts. But not during 2020. This year, there is the solitary groundsman on his tractor.

However, the members of our PE Faculty have continued to set challenges for our pupils to improve their techniques and have fun. The challenges have included our Road to Tokyo, plus keepie uppies, passes, racket and ball, rally, shooting and more! We have been posting videos and tweets on the PE Faculty Twitter: @CDPSsport.

Congratulations to the Key Stage 3 pupils and staff who contributed kilometres to our Road to Tokyo Challenge set by the Head of PE, Mrs Hacker. You walked, cycled, ran and even climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest to amass more than our target of 9118.4km during lockdown - the distance from Cirencester to Tokyo, where the Olympics is scheduled to place in 2021. Thank you to everyone who took part in this great team effort.

In previous years, the National School Sport Week in June is a great week at Deer Park, filled with sporting events and opportunities to try different sports in PE lessons, thanks to funding from The Friends of Deer Park and the generosity of local sports providers (read about 2019).

This year the Youth Sport Trust and Sky Sports teamed up to unite the country through sport with National School Sport Week At Home (Saturday 20 to Friday 26 June 2020). With social distancing in place and most school-aged children unable to return to school, the week required an innovative take on the usual celebration of PE and school sport. Unprecedented times called for unprecedented measures. More than 7,500 registrants signed up to take part, including pupils from Cirencester Deer Park School. Using Show My Homework we sent pupils a link to register and then complete a range of fun and exciting NSSW activities related to athletics, aiming sports, team sports, adventure sports and artistic sports. Our pupils then emailed their results and any photos or videos to their PE teacher.

PE Teacher Mr Cumming said "During the course of lockdown we have been providing pupils at Deer Park with a range of fun PE related activities to complete, taking into account that not everyone has a large outdoors space at home. This NSSW initiative fitted this criteria and we as a PE Faculty were very happy to support this. I was really pleased to receive so many emails from pupils who continue to show amazing determination, resilience and creativity to complete these challenges."

Sports Day at Deer Park is one of, if not the, sporting highlight of the year, involving all year groups and staff. Despite not being able to hold our Sports Day this year - with the whole school out on the sports field, tutor groups cheering on their fellow tutees as they compete in track and field events, and an atmosphere of both competition and festivity - some of our Staff took part in a Virtual Staff Relay as an alternative to the usual staff v pupils relay race. Our thanks to Miss Faux in Expressive Arts for editing the video. We do hope that you enjoy watching it!

As lockdown measures start to ease, grassroots sport is beginning to restart, outdoor pools are allowed to open - Cirencester Open Air Pool reopens on Monday 20 July - and leisure centres and indoor pools can open from 25 July (check Government Guidelines). Remember though, it costs nothing to go for a walk and it is something you can easily do alone or with friends or family.

We hope that you have an amazing summer, whatever you do. Be outside and active as much as you can. As we know, sport plays a vital role in enhancing both physical and mental wellbeing.

See you in September!