From The Head - Friday 20th September 2024

We have enjoyed a super-sporty start to the year with a plethora of fixtures and tournaments. In assembly this morning, we celebrated multiple achievements, including the wonderful victory at the Shrewsbury Football Tournament last week.

As one of the specialist departments in school, sport plays a prominent role and the children start to benefit from specialist teaching in Early Years, instilling a strong foundation of core skills and often what turns out to be a passion for life. Those skills and knowledge are built upon year on year, improving not only fitness, but the ability and knowledge to play a range of sports to a very high level.

Evidence shows that children and young people who are more active have more confidence, higher self- esteem, less anxiety and stress and better social skills – attributes that can help them deal with the challenges they face in daily life. Positive attitudes towards physical activity have also been associated with children being happier.

Anyone who has represented their school sports team will report what a wonderful sense of satisfaction, pride and excitement they gain by donning their kit and heading off on a fixture. Even if the result doesn't go our way in a match, there is still so much to be gained. Sport teaches children to deal with the disappointment of not winning and how to cope with failure - you can't win all the time! Sport is also a great platform for developing values of respect and sportsmanship which are so important to have.

Mrs Jones and the Sports Department always seek opportunities to include all children and provide a huge number of opportunities for competitive sport, not to mention developing the skills of children as young as three. From the talent we see in school, it is certain that The Ryleys School will continue to be able to field successful sports teams for many, many years to come!

Julia Langford.
Headteacher