We managed to get a hold of our Head of Sports, Mr. Griffin, and asked him a few questions. Our photo team also photographed him in the playground.
You are the head of sports at BPS. What does this mean that you do?
It means I get to be involved in subjects I’m passionate about, like thinking about how we can get more children to be do sports at school. It also involves some administrative tasks.
What are the School Games? How are they important to us here at school?
The School Games program is set up so that it can get lots of children to take part in competitive sports. The School Games run tournaments that we participate in, like the football league, the rugby league, and the netball league. We are also one of very few state schools with a dedicated table tennis team. Like some of the other sports at school, like dancing and biking, the table tennis is helped by outside sport organizations that support with their enthusiastic expert coaches.
What should our school be particularly proud of when it comes to sports?
Barnes Primary should be really proud of its athletics, basketball and table tennis teams. Rugby too, where the whole team consists of students in year 5. This means they are younger than the competition but still do well. Barnes’s girls are also exceptionally good, pushing the boundaries of girls’ sport. But what we are probably best at, is to turn up at tournaments and always doing our best.
What could we do even better?
One important thing we want to do is to arrange more tournaments for pupils who don’t always make the first teams, but are passionate about sports. Also, we work on giving pupils more chances to be leaders themselves. In the summer term, we look forward to involving groups of children in running the sports day.
Which is your personal favourite sport?
For watching, I like swimming and basketball tournaments. For doing sports myself, I like football and running.