Sport

St Bernard's U9 Football Festival - Saturday 1 February

Gateway fielded two teams for the St Bernard's Festival on Saturday and put in some excellent performances. It was fantastic to see so many children committed to school sport on a Saturday morning and some of the football on show made it an enjoyable watch. Both teams suffered only one defeat from their five games which meant they both finished as runners-up in their respective groups.

Bucks County XC at Stowe School - Wednesday 5 February

In the most stunning setting at Stowe School, some of Gateway's strongest Y5/6 runners participated in the County Championships. The course was a tough slog with a number of challenging hills but all of our runners made light work of it and we had three children qualify for the National Finals which will be held on Saturday 21 March in Loughborough. Well done Zachary, Kaspar and Evelyn on national qualification.

U9 Netball Tournament v Pipers and Gayhurst - Tuesday 4 February

On Tuesday, we took some of the Year 4 girls over to Pipers Corner for a tournament. Each team played both Gayhurst and Pipers, meaning that they got plenty of game time! As always, our girls played superbly and we were extremely proud of them. We came away with a mixture of results, some wins and some losses. Most importantly, we came away with big smiles and some things to work on for next time! Thank you to the parents who came to support us.

U11 ISA Regional Netball Tournament - Wednesday 5 February

On Wednesday, our U11 girls went to Essex to participate in the ISA regional netball competition. The girls have been training hard for this, so we were all a mix of excited and anxious to get there! When we arrived, we were told which pool we were in and when we would be playing each match. In order to qualify for the next stage, we needed to win all of our games in our pool. The pressure was on! We started out strong, we won our first 3 matches before stopping for some lunch. After lunch, we had an anxious wait before we could play our last two games with the hope for more success. The time came, and the girls went from strength to strength, winning both games and securing our place in the quarter finals.

In the quarter final we were up against an old rival - Gatehouse. After some discussion over the scores, it was decided that the game was a draw, and we were to play an extra 6 minutes to decide the winner. 6 minutes flew by, the girls were fighting and the game was going our way. Gatehouse managed to get a goal right at the end, which meant that we had drawn again. The officials decided to add on 2 minutes extra time, which again, we drew 1-1! It was then decided that we would play on, and the next goal would win. It became quite intense, but the girls were focused and the urge to win really helped to keep morale high after playing for quite some time. We scored first! Which meant we were through to the semi finals.

We had a win in the semi finals, which meant that we were through to the final round.

By this point, we were all exhausted, but excited at the prospect of being in the final. We were playing against St James’ school, who had won this competition for the last few years. Although we tried our absolute best, they ended up getting the win.

We were so pleased, the standard of netball was absolutely fantastic and all the girls involved were a credit to the school. Their attitude, conduct and of course game play was impeccable throughout the whole day. The girls should all be extremely proud of themselves.

As we came 2nd, we still qualified for the nationals which will take part in March. We are extremely excited for this, but for now, back to training to make sure we are ready!