­­Year 8 County schools rugby finals 3^rd April

The year 8 rugby squad with a smattering of year 7’s entered the Year 8 County schools rugby finals with high hopes after emphatically winning the district finals the previous week.

The competition was divided into two pools with the winner of each pool playing off for the trophy.

 The boys played with focus and passion throughout and despite a very hard battle against NIA managed to conquer the group having only conceded 2 tries.

The final was a close affair for the majority of the game with Ferrers and Sponne trading tries in the first 10 minutes. An outstanding defensive action from Sponne ended with a try saving tackle near our line. The resulting line out was won and Jeremy then ran 95 m to score , batting off opponents like flies  “en route”.

The remaining 5 minutes were incredibly tense, but with the last play of the game, after the forwards made damaging runs earning a scrum, we scored under the posts to secure a memorable and well deserved County title.

Well done to all.

On Thursday 4th April the Royal Navy catering team came to Sponne School to work with year 9 students who are studying for the GCSE Food, Preparation and Nutrition course. 
After the Navy introduced themselves and the role of cooking in the armed forces, the students had one hour to complete a ‘Ready Steady Cook’ style activity in small groups.   The groups planned and made the dishes with expert advice from the Navy catering specialists.
We would like to extend a massive thank-you to the Navy for this opportunity, which not only produced amazing results and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Sponne won the district round which meant that we progressed to the county finals on Wednesday 27^th March at the ON’s. The tournament was to be a round-robin which included games against Northampton International Academy (NIA), Bishop Stopford, Northampton School for Boys (NSB) and Magdalen.

Our first game was against NIA and we made a great start. Two tries from Oscar on his debut for the team. Next we played a strong Bishop Stopford side that made it extremely difficult throughout. They competed really well in the rucks and a number of handling errors prevented us from scoring tries. Another excellent try from the impressive Oscar in the dying moments sealed our 2^nd win of the tournament.

Next was NSB who had won their first two games against NIA and Bishop by a one try margin. NSB won the toss and swapped ends, putting us in direction of the sun. Despite this we made an impressive start and pinned NSB into their own half. NSB regained possession and kicked to gain territory and an extremely fortunate bounce landed back in the hands of an NSB player and they scored to go ahead. The remaining 7 minutes of the game was all Sponne with consistent pressure on NSB’s defensive line. A number of penalties later and the NSB defence continued to hold on. With the final play of the game a well worked move saw our boys go into the corner and ground the ball but for it to fall just shy of the line. An extremely unlucky 1-0 loss to a strong NSB side, it had been our best team performance of the tournament so far.

Into our last game against Magdalen the team knew that they needed NSB to lose their final game but that we needed to continue to score as many as we could in ours. A fantastic performance from all of the team resulted in a 4-0 victory vs. Magdalen. Oscar scored another 2 tries; Jamie got one as well along with a brilliant try off of a rolling maul from Danny.

A great tournament that saw us finish as runners-up at the county finals. The boys were disappointed but are motivated to win at next year’s tournament. That’s a total of 9 games for our Year 7’s with 8 wins and 1 loss.

Towcester Town Vixens v Woburn & Wavendon Lionesses

Coach – Ed Brown-Forde
Assistant Coach – Jo Anderson

Match Report by Ed Brown-Forde
18 months of hard work and dedication paid off on Tuesday night winning our first cup final! From the first whistle we defended with great determination and attacked with purpose banishing any pre-match nerves and settling into a pattern of exciting end-to-end football.

The entrance fee of £2.00 was worth every penny and we were urged on by an enthusiastic crowd and local support, encouraging every kick and throw. With very few chances created, our goalkeeper was called into action first, tipping an effort onto the crossbar which set the tone for us to roll up our sleeves and take the game to our opponents. After a goal-less eventful first half, it was pretty much an even contest with some no-nonsense defending from Vixens. 

Our first purposeful attack came early on in the second half and we finally broke the deadlock! Freya Brown pouncing on an initially blocked shot, slotting it home into the roof of the net which sent our large band of supporters into frenzy!

A few breakaway chances by both teams fizzled out to nothing or scrambled away with great conviction to protect our narrow lead.

As full time approached, a last ditched attack bought us a hard fought second goal by Nicole Adams, showing composure to slot home high and wide of the advancing goalkeeping lifting the roof off the grandstand and calming the tension on the field of play as the final whistle beckoned. When the game eventually came to a close, this was the start of our celebrations with an atmosphere which was electric and party like. 

In my personal opinion I have never experienced such emotion, which I couldn’t express on the night in question without what thoughts my colleague was encountering also! Long may this feeling continue! 

Many thanks to Ampthill Town FC for making us so welcome and their kind words and hospitality.

We are so very proud of all of the girls and very thankful to our extremely supportive parents who play a major part in this team.

On Thursday 21 March, I took two Year 7 teams to play in a Triangular District Tournament to Moulton School.

The A team played matches against Y8 Moulton and Y8 Campion.  They played incredibly well, defending like a brick wall and stringing fantastic passes together, backing each other up and attacking the goal ensuring the oppositions defence were constantly kept on their toes!  They won both games 2-1 with Amelia scoring all 4 goals with fantastic assistance from the rest of her team.  Player’s player went to Amelia.  Coaches attacking player went to Nieve and Coaches defending player went to Mia.

The B team played matches against Y7 Moulton and Y7 Campion.  For most of the girls it was their first ever school hockey match and for some their first ever representation for Sponne.  It was a massive learning curve for them as playing on astro is very different to the hard netball courts where we practice!! They also played very well and defended extremely well, clearing the ball up the pitch to Lucy who was waiting up front to put pressure on their GK.  Player’s player went to Lucy.  Coaches attacking player went to Jemima and Coaches defending player went to Monica.

I am extremely proud of the all the girls who played, we all had so much fun (them playing and me shouting!) and their smiles say it all – well done girls!

On Monday 11th March, 63 students from across Year 7 & 8 attended a Rugby development day at Towcester rugby club. The girls were involved in 4 x coaching sessions led by RFU coaches that focused on different skills and techniques from the game. The girls got stuck in, worked hard and most importantly had fun! In the afternoon, they split into 2 games (both contact) and played really well against each other, with lots of tries being scored.

Towcester RFC has a thriving girls sector with a very successful U15 squad and a great U13's squad. If your daughter would like to get involved in Girls rugby, the U13's train on a Monday evening from 6:30-8pm and the U15's train on a Thursday 6-7:30pm. Alternatively, please contact Mrs Appleby (PE) for further details.

Many of our students have had the opportunity to make use of our new facility to improve their physical and mental well-being and although it is a considerable improvement on our previous fitness room, initial funding did not allow for an upgrade to some of the “tired“ equipment.

Consequently, last year, I applied to the Tesco Bags of Help Grant Scheme for funding support. I am delighted to let you know that our project along with the other two successful projects in our region has been selected to go forward a vote in Tesco stores where their customers will decide the outcome by voting for their favourite project each time they shop. Voting will take place from Wednesday 1st May 2019 to Sunday 30th June 2019 and we will be notified at the end of July 2019 confirming the amount of funding we will receive if successful.

The project with the highest number of votes across our region will receive £4,000, the second placed project £2,000 and the third placed project £1,000. Obviously we want to be the first placed project, so when you are shopping in Tesco’s during May and June please put your disc in to the Sponne School Fitness Suite box.
Fingers crossed for a successful outcome.

Thank you for your continued support,

Justin Maybury
FLL Physical Education

Following from a hugely successful District Championships, for the first time ever, Sponne qualified in each of the four categories for the County Sportshall Athletics Championships. These were held at Kettering Leisure Village with the 8 best schools in the County.

The standard was extremely high but Sponne students acquitted themselves well with many individual successes. For many of the Year 7’s this was their first experience of competitive athletics and the rich success that Sponne has enjoyed over the years looks set to continue.

The final results saw Sponne claim medals in all four categories. Both the Year 7 boys and Year 8 boys teams finished in bronze medal position. The Year 7 girls went one better and finished in silver medal position but the outstanding performance of the day went to the Year 8 girls team who were crowned County Champions !! Well done to all those that took part

PE Staff

Year 8 Girls Turn Heads at the County Cup

The Year 8 Netball Team is going from strength to strength at the minute and after a 1^st place finish at the County Plate they were off to the County Cup. The girls were up against teams from Oundle, Winchester House, Wellingborough, Northampton High School and Moulton (the runners up from the Plate)

The girls started the day with a convincing win against Moulton 15-1 and then went on to beat Oundle 12-2. Next up was Wellingborough who we knew would give us a competitive game. After leading at half time we were out shone in the second half by a very strong 7 to finish 6-10 to Wellingborough. Northampton High School were our next opposition and again a strong start by Sponne with outstanding play from our formidable attack Emily, Hayley, Lily and Izzie leading us to a 8-6 victory. Our final game was against Winchester House and once again our defensive players stepped up, Hermione, Francesca, Becky, and Phoebe made sure we were ahead at the break; however the second half proved too much for us. Winchester House pulled it together and won the match 9-3.

Final Results: 1^st – Winchester House, Wellingborough, Sponne, NHS, Oundle, Moulton

Coaches Player of the tournament: Franchesca

Players Player of the tournament: Hermione

Congratulations Girls, You should be very proud.