On the 27th April, Panathlon visited Brooke Weston School in Northamptonshire to run a training session for 16 Young leaders, followed by a multisport competition for 56 competing students from; Corby Business Academy, Billingbrook school, Friars school and new-comers Isebrook School.
Made possible by funding from the Bulldog Trust, the leadership training involved 16 students from year 8 and 9 at Brooke Weston School who learnt the rules across Polybat, Boccia, Kurling, Table Cricket and Field Athletics in preparation for the event.
In the early stages of the competition, Billingbrook, (last years champions) edged themselves in to the lead after picking up wins in Table Cricket and and Polybat. It looked as though they were going to run away with the competition again, but they struggled to re-find their form in kurling, field athletics and boccia which opened the door for Friars School and Corby Business Academy who shared the spoils.
Michelle Reeves from Northamptonshire Sport Partnership said “Today has been a brilliant day and the competition is heating up, we’re half way through and have 3 teams in the running for Gold. The Panathlon competition today has been a fantastic opportunity to bring together lots of students with varying disabilities to have fun and enjoy competing in a variety of games and events.
The trained volunteer student Leaders from Brooke Weston have also been fantastic and have provided an amazing experience for all. It’ll be interesting to see who finishes out on top and goes on to represent Northamptonshire at the Regional competition.”
At the end of the competition, the scores were collated and the results were as follows:
1st Place — Corby Business Academy 50 points
2nd Place — Billingbrook 48 points
3rd Place — Friars 46 points
4th Place — Isebrook 32 points
Congratulations to Corby Business Academy, Champions 2016, by the narrowest of margins.
Liam Welch, the PE Teacher at Billingbrook said, “This is an amazing experience for all. This is the first time we have been able to field a complete team and we’ve brought a coach-load of students because it’s such an inclusive event that our students get a lot from.”
Colin and Charlotte who are competing students from Billingbrook added, “we’ve had such a fun day. We did kurling and boccia and we haven’t won all of our matches but it’s been really good. Last year we went to Stoke Mandeville for the finals so I’m really hoping we win today and qualify to go again!”
A huge thanks must go to Brooke Weston School who hosted the event and provided wonderful leaders who remained enthusiastic throughout. We really hope to involve them again in future competitions.
Thanks also to our funders-
