Panathlon held their first ever visually impaired bowling competition this week in East London, for 13 students from Joseph Clarke School. The day was possible thanks to funding from the City Bridge Trust. Debbie King, PE Teacher at Joseph Clarke School said “We’ve been more involved in Panathlon this year than any other because we now have opportunities like this for VI specific sport. 4 of the students here today have never been bowling and to see the enjoyment on their faces has been great. This year we have taken part in tennis, boccia and bowling and our students absolutely love the chance to do this because it’s so new to many of them. Boccia especially has been great because thanks to in school coaching and then the London finals all organised by Panathlon, we’re now travelling to Mansfield on the 3rd July to represent our school and London in the National Finals! Next year we can’t wait to be even more involved and also to see how our bowling scores stand up against other schools in the region.”
On the day it was the Orange Team consisting of Jason, David, Nesrana and Tayeb who took gold. The silver medal was awarded to the Blue team made up of Kelle, Daniel, Maria and Jack, whilst the red team including Sara, Fikrit, Imran, Debbie and Stella took the bronze medal . We now look forward to rolling the visually impaired bowling programme out across the rest of London in 2016 and having providing many more competitive opportunities for VI students.
“This has been an awesome day. My favourite sport is bowling and I’ve only come a couple of times before. I really like it when I’m about to throw the ball down and everyone in my team is cheering for me.” Tayeb, student at Joseph Clarke School
Thank you to our funders The City Bridge Trust
