On the morning of Wednesday 5 June 2019, Cirencester Deer Park School hosted the Primary Cirencester District Athletics event. Schools from our local primary cluster took part: Chesterton, Kemble, Powell’s, Sapperton, Siddington and Stratton primary schools. Despite heavy rain the day before, we were fortunate to have dry (but cold) weather throughout the morning, which, combined with windy conditions, dried out the track and allowed for a range of fun-filled athletics events.

Track events included 50m Sprint, 80m Sprint, 600m, Skipping, Track Relay and Shuttle Relay races. Field events included Ball Throw, Speed Bounce, Long Jump and Standing Triple Jump. Pupils in Year 3 and 4 initially completed Track events, whilst Years 5 and 6 completed Field events, and they swapped halfway through the morning.

The success of each Primary District Athletics event is directly related to the superb efforts of our Young Sports Leaders, who stepped into their roles with enthusiasm and professionalism. This year we used our new Young Sports Leaders in (new) Year 9 - recently selected after an application process to the PE Faculty - and our (new) Year 10 Young Leaders, who helped by passing on their experience. Their jobs included race starters, results recorders, track positions stewards, photo finish judges, field event judges and media reports. Our Young Leaders had completed training sessions to learn the different roles for the event and were selected for a role which best suited them.

Mr Cumming said that “The Young Sports Leaders were excellent this year. The new Young Leaders performed to a very high standard at their first event and completed tasks with great enthusiasm and care. It was also great to see last year’s Young Leaders coming back to inspire our new Young Leaders and pass on their excellent knowledge of how to run athletics events.”