A Year in Sport: Reflections from Our Captains

During this year’s Prize Day celebration, we were inspired by a heartfelt and powerful speech from our Sports Captains, Holly and Ove. Their words perfectly captured the spirit and highlights of our sporting year. Read their remarkable speech below:

“Good morning everyone, We are Holly and Ove – the new school Sports Captains. It is a privilege to stand here today and share some highlights from a year that has been nothing short of remarkable in the world of Windermere sport.

At Windermere, sport isn’t just something we do—it’s part of who we are. Whether we’re running around in the sunshine or pouring rain, on the fells or our sports pitches, this is the arena where we learn how to push ourselves, handle success and failure, lift each other up, and grow stronger in character.

Our Year 7, 8 and 9 PE classes have worked extremely hard during their morning PE lessons, covering a huge range of activities. Termly awards recognising exceptional effort during these lessons have gone to Jonah W and Thomas W.

During games afternoons, all year groups have been given the opportunity to select options throughout the year – and have partaken in football, netball, hockey, cricket and rounders.

One of the biggest benefits of being in a small school like Windermere is that every single one of us gets to access great representative opportunities in so many sports. We are proud to see that 100% of all Year 7 – 9 pupils have represented the school in a fixture this year, and almost all Year 7 – 13 students have represented their house in an inter-house sports competition.

We have had a busy schedule of friendly matches, as well as a multitude of local tournaments and competitions. Some highlights amongst these include:

Our Sixth Form netball match vs Kirkbie Kendal – a nail-biting game which Windermere won in the final minutes. Our Year 7 netball team have also made phenomenal progress throughout the year, enjoying weekly fixtures during their games afternoons. They narrowly missed out on the finals at their district tournament, but had a convincing win against Sedbergh, led by captain Immi.

Our hockey teams had a great year, including our Year 7’s coming 2nd in the South Lakes tournament, our Year 8’s progressing to the final of the South Lakes cup and our under 16 boys progressing to the county final. The standout performance of the year was Jenny B’s immense goalkeeping vs Sedbergh. She is giving Oscar J a run for his money for Windermere’s bravest goalkeeper.

Our badminton club has been hugely popular this year, and we were proud to take a skilful team to compete in the county championships. Our basketballers also had a successful season, with impressive wins vs QES, QEGS and Keswick – and more importantly some excellent skills and effort on show. Daniel O has stood out for his electric dribbling and pace through the court.

It has been a busy cricket season, despite the recent rain. Highlights have included close games vs The Lakes, and some outstanding performances from: – Daniel, Algy and Jonah in Year 7;  Elizabeth, George and Angus in Year 8; and Jacob in Year 9.

I don’t want to embarrass Holly, but apparently her bowling has been very impressive too!

Our footballers had a busy and competitive season, with the highlight match being our Sixth Formers’ 5-all thriller vs Austin Friars, which included the fastest hattrick in school history by Cam S. Other notable successes were our Year 8 footballers coming 4th in a very competitive district tournament, some excellent progress from our Year 7 and Year 9 teams and memorable matches during Year 10 and 11 games lessons.

In tennis, all four of our teams are currently sitting in 1st place in their leagues, with Sam A’s topspin proving a force to be reckoned with. The Windermere knockout Tennis Championships has also been underway this term, with just a small group now left playing for a pair of Wimbledon tickets.

Achieving success takes hard work, bravery and dedication. Our cross country and athletics teams have demonstrated this in huge measures. Magnus Fwon the Stonyhurst invitational cross country, and both he and Emma A-B qualified to represent Cumbria at Cross Country. Our Year 7’s were impressive at the Cumbrian cross-country champs – with all 8 of our athletes placing in the top 90. We took over 40 athletes to the Track and Field cup, and several to the district athletics championships. As we speak, Joey, Ava, Magnus and Emma are representing the South Lakes at the County qualifiers in Carlisle.

Of course, we must mention our legendary interhouse competitions—featuring everything from high energy dodgeball to ultimate frisbee, table tennis to mini-Olympics. The rivalry is fierce, the scores are close, and Sports Day is still to come!

The previous captains have been presenting a ‘sportsperson of the fortnight’ during reflection, of which there have been many deserving recipients. Daniel O and Isaac L-B also received award for being ‘sportsperson of the term’ and we recognised outstanding contributions from Freddie W, James S and Oscar J.

A further highlight was our ‘Super Saturday’ at the start of the year – an outreach event for local primary school children to come and sample a day of Sport and Adventure at Windermere. It was a day full of energy and laughter, which we hope to make a yearly tradition.

The final and biggest highlight of the year was our sports tour. During the Easter Holidays, 40 of us got the phenomenal opportunity to represent the Windermere badge overseas. We travelled to the Netherlands and spent the week immersing ourselves in culture and sport. As one of the tour captains, I felt so proud to be representing our great school. Not only did we all learn lots about sport, but we had the time of our lives – we had so much fun, met new people and creating unforgettable memories and team bonds.

Of course the most important part of sport is enjoyment, and we hope that every student in this room can now reflect on a sporting moment that they have particularly enjoyed this year. Thank you for listening to our sporting highlight reel of talent, teamwork and triumph. We can’t wait to see what next year brings!”

Windermere School is an Independent Boarding and Day School for ages 3-18, across Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form. The school offers holiday courses and a summer school programme, as well as short term immersion courses for international pupils, as well as an award winning IB programme. Join the adventure today >