Handball Tournament Yr10 Girls’ County

The annual Year 10 Girls’ Handball Tournament took place during the first week back after half term. In preparation for this no less than 20 girls from Year 10 attended training twice a week for a month leading up to the competition. Inspired by the successes of the year above, the current Year 10 girls wanted to prove their worth for GMS. A healthy contingent from the Year 10 netball team meant that the passing ability was strong, leaving just the shooting and defensive skills to work on. Defending came naturally to the girls as it is similar to netball, albeit just in a wall as opposed to individuals. The shooting, however, was not so natural. Being allowed to take three steps holding the ball, then jump and then throw (pass/shoot) is a very difficult skill to learn (huge amounts of coordination needed), but integral to success in the game. Despite being frustrated by the difficulty of this skill the girls continued with the practices showing their resilience. This paid dividends, as the vast majority of the squad can now perform this skill.  In time, this will help if they use handball as an assessed GCSE PE skill, allowing them to access the higher grades.

The tournament hosted 12 teams from around the county, including schools from Milton Keynes. Mr Goodright  has taken this fixture for the past two years and it became immediately apparent to him that the standard had moved up significantly, yet again. Each team was expected to play a 6 minute straight game against every other team there, meaning that our 2 GMS teams would have to play 11 fixtures, including a GMS VS GMS game.

Both the GMS teams started slowly and struggled to find their form, the 6 minute games did not help because the intensity was amplified by the limited time slot: as there was little time for the players to dominate a game, GMS girls went out as hard as they could. The initial games were lost but by a narrow margin. Yet, the potential was there and witnessed as the GMS girls moved the ball fluently down the court, culminating with the ever-difficult jump shot.

As the tournament progressed the GMS teams found their form and drew level with the top placed teams. Sadly, the marginal losses at the beginning meant the girls struggled to make the top three positions overall. In the end, GMS were placed 5th and 6th respectively. This is by no means a disappointment as the aforementioned standard was significant.

Overall, both teams did exceptionally well, considering they had never played together as a team in a competitive fixture.

Keen to build on these successes and their experience the Year 10 girls played the Year 11 girls in a lunchtime friendly fixture; the rivalry and healthy competition was great to witness. Ultimately, this form of fixture can be used for GCSE PE assessments. The Year 11 girls won by 1 goal in a very well played and competitive fixture that  could have been won by either team.