- Home
- Beyond the Classroom
- Sport at CSGS
Sport at CSGS
Follow us on Twitter for the latest Chis and Sid sporting exploits:
Curriculum Leader, Mr French's Sports Round Up 2023-24
I’ve heard it said that Sport doesn’t build character - it reveals it. Well if that is true then our students have shown truckloads of it during the 2023-24 season!
The season had so many highlights, following is just a small soupçon of the students exploits in the world of sport for the academic year 2023-24.
Netball: A year of firsts for the girls. Having the opportunity to compete in the Sisters in Sport Shield. A national level competition with some of the finest Netball schools in the country competing – teams in all age groups did incredibly well, playing against very serious opposition such as the Abbey School (Reading) and Kings Canterbury. However the U13 had the most notable run – making the bowl semi-finals.
At district level the girls were once again been all conquering - sweeping all before them and being crowned district champions in all age groups.
In the seniors they had some serious work to do in their Whiteoak league after winning promotion to Division 2 last year, but true to form another promotion still looks possible this year as currently Chis are joint top on points.
More good news follows with girls in U13 & 15 categories being selected to represent Kent and a huge congratulations to Bailey in Year 11 who has been selected for the London Pulse Development Pathway. Netball is looking stronger than ever!
In Athletics the school enjoyed another successful year performing well at district level. Indeed the intermediate boys won their competition and advanced to represent Bexley at regional level. There were some truly notable performances from Thorian W in the 300m – who spent the week leading up to the event telling Mr Pyne he was concerned he wasn’t quick enough and then only went and won it! And Omotola A who high jumped 1.8m – for reference that is almost the equivalent of jumping over two of me!
Other fantastic performances came from Emmanuel A in the 100m / Dylan S in the 800m / Lucas O in the shot / Aoifa M 1500m / Sienna T the Discuss and Lilly B in the 800m. Well done to all that competed. They ran, threw and jumped their socks off!
In Pre Sports Day events three school records were broken in the 300m by Timothy, Illias and Aiofa.
And on the 90th CSGS Sports Day in July a further three new records were set for the following events:
Inter Boys– High Jump – 1.81m (Townsend) - Omotola A
Inter Girls– 100m – 12.96sec (Williams) - Cheyanne N
Inter Boys – 4x100m Relay – 48.20 (Townsend)
Cross country: Saw Chis n Sid host the district X Country for the first time – and in true cross country fashion it rained! On a very soggy November morning the following students did us and themselves proud:
- Aoife M won the junior girls event
- Lilly B took silver in intermediate girls
- James B won the senior boys with Oli C and Dylan S picking up bronze and silver respectively in a well fought out final.
- Murphy M took silver in the junior boys – with a podium finish qualifying competitors for a crack at the County Champs in Dover.
All Chis n Sid runners went well in these races but Murphy was especially good and went on to take 1st place! making him Kent County Champ!
Cricket: This year the school learnt that we had achieved the honour of been selected as one of the Cricketer Magazine’s top 100 cricket schools for 2024. This is a great testament to the school and the fantastic effort of everyone who contributes to school cricket, particularly as we are one of the few state schools who received this recognition.
In Girls cricket we were flying high with the U13 team winning the Kent County Chance to Compete Final against local rivals Bexley Grammar. They will be representing Kent at the Regional finals on the 15th July. On the way to this magnificent victory there was some fantastic batting from Lois F, hitting the rope no less that 4 times! Ella I, Anna F, Dulcie R and Jess S took wickets for fun and picked up more dots than a Dalmatian.
In the U15s we were county finalists in the indoor competition only narrowly loosing to a very strong Weald of Kent Grammar team, comprising of a number of county players.
Whilst the boys did not reach the heights of last season on the playing front, it was still a very successful year. They reached the finals of all four of the North Kent competitions with the Year 8 and 9 teams retaining their trophies. All teams made good progress in the Kent competitions too with the Year 7 team reaching the quarter finals of the plate competition before losing a competitive game to eventual winner St.Olave’s.
The 1st XI were hampered by the weather this year as well as their sometimes-fragile batting. The highlight of the year was dismissing Rochester Maths for 25 runs in the U18 League, with Dylan ‘the Sidcup Express’ Youngs taking 5 wickets for 4 runs.
Finally for cricket I need to thank the year 7 side for teaching me a whole new language this year during our many games – plus 10k aura boys.
Tennis: only in its second year as an extra curricular option and making its debut on the curriculum for the first time in many decades, things are looking very good indeed.
This year we were able to field a team in both the U13 and U15 category. Both squads competed in the Kent Doubles Tournament and their respective Kent & SE London Leagues. In the doubles the U15s did very well making the quarter finals and the U13s placed 3rd overall taking the bronze medal. In the Kent and SE London Leagues both teams went unbeaten to reach the finals – once again at the finals they proved to be unbeatable by any opposition who dared to take to a court with them. The U13 eventually finishing 2nd and taking the silver medal and the U15s taking the gold!
In other competitions - a huge number of students took part in the play your way to Wimbledon comp with Isla Gr and Ethan C making it through to the upcoming county finals. So as Andy Murray bows out of top level tennis it would seem there is a queue of Chis n Sid students ready to take up the challenge!
My penultimate review comes from the weird and wonderful world of the oval shaped ball: In our regular 15s season of Saturday fixtures against some of the best rugby schools in the SE we were very competitive in all age groups with most teams enjoying around a 50% win rate. There were some notable scalps taken by the U13s beating Whitgift and the U14s beating Judd curtesy of a final kick of the game penalty by Oli J. In the major Cup competitions both the 1st XV and U15s acquitted themselves well and made the 4th round. However the season really came alive in the 7s season with some exceptional displays at county and national level. There are two teams though who I would like to briefly highlight.
The U14s put on a tremendous show only narrowly missing out on qualification for day two of the national 7s in a pool of some of the top teams in the country. While the U16s finally broke their run of losses in county and national finals by taking the Kent Cup and bringing home the silver wear.
Before I move onto my last review – a brief advert, if you will permit me. With so much extra curricular sport going on we really do need as many parents to help out as possible. I can't say thank you enough to those of you are that already do. With a very active Rugby Supporters' Association and we are hoping to set up similar body for Cricket and to reinvigorate and grow the Netball Parents' Association further. If you are interested or can help with either please speak to Mr Wallbridge and Miss Bunn about what you feel you could do. With planned Netball tours to Dubai and Cricket to South Africa we really do need you.
Finally in Dance we once again qualified for the London Youth Games finals as district winners in KS3! This secured an invite to the Copper Box at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to perform against the best in London, in front of a huge crowed. As ever our students did us proud at this prestigious event.
