The four-day event is now an annual fixture on the calendar – in fact, this is the 10th year the students have organised sports day for their local partner primary school!
The students, who are studying on various levels of sports courses, planned the event meticulously.
They met and liaised with the school, and jointly came up with the activities for the children, producing a scheme of works with roles and responsibilities, so they could keep track on what activities were happening, when and who were the coordinators ,marshals and race organisers during the event.
There was an egg and spoon race, relay race, soccer dribble, hockey dribble, assault course, penalty shootout, quoits relay among others and some more unusual sports day competitions such as dodgeball and capture the flag.
The College and school are just across the road from each other, so it makes perfect sense for them to collaborate in this . The College also provided the use of its large sports field for the event, which provided plenty of space for guests to cheer on the 600 children over the four days.
“Organising a Sports Event” and “Leadership in Sport” are some of the units the students need to complete as part of their BTEC qualification.
Dean Cutting, Curriculum Team Leader for Sports and Lecturer at Barking & Dagenham College said: “The students planned, organised and delivered the whole event and they did it brilliantly. The feedback we’ve had from the primary school and guests who came and watched it has been fantastic. It’s such a great opportunity for our students to do something for our local community and we’re very proud of them. It was a very successful event.”
Heidi Duffy one of the level 3 sports students was the main announcer for the week, she said: “Sports day was excellent and very enjoyable not only for the Rush Green children, but also for us the learners that held the event.
“The sports day went well from all the different stations to the communication with children, staff, learners and parents. From someone who helped out at the event I really enjoyed it and learnt so much more to improve and enhance my Coaching and Leadership skills.”
Nicola Seabrook, teacher from Rush Green Primary School added: “We at the school have had so many great comments about this year’s sports days across all year groups and from teachers, teaching assistants, parents and especially the children. They LOVED it!!!
“So, thank you all very much for running such an enjoyable and well organised event for us.”
