Sport Captain

As we enter the last term of sport for 2022, it is important that we reflect on what the year has been to learn how we can improve in 2023. After the success of our Athletics team at the CaSSSA competition some weeks ago, I gave the girls important messages on Assembly. I have included my top two points in this newsletter, as I believe they are crucial to the success of our sporting teams for years to come. 

Mt A is good at sport. I’ve been here for six years now, I’ve heard “we’re so bad”, “of course we came last” and heard students laugh when we’ve announced results of past teams.  This isn’t good enough, and it’s something that I really hope changes from today. If we aren’t encouraging those students participating and celebrating no matter how small the win, then why would girls want to continue to train and do sport here at school? It’s extremely disheartening for those who have trained and worked hard to hear things like “we’re so bad” or “of course we came last.” So, I hope we can limit these negative comments from today and in the future because we are good at sport, there’s so much talent at this school and our athletics team showed that on Monday. 

The second point I want to bring up is the difference between participation and commitment. We have a lot of girls participating, but we don’t have many girls committing. As you would know, you are only eligible to be selected in CaSSSA teams (like the swimming, cross country, and athletics) if you attend training and practice meets. This year we had so many empty events – this is common in senior years, but even for the 13 years girls we had events to fill. This is worrying as you younger girls in years 7 and 8 are the future of sport here at the college so we really need you to step up. Girls in year 9 and 10, participation usually drops during these years but as someone talking to you with only a term left you should really be making the most of your time in Clare School. It’s the perfect time to try new sports and events and sign up for things with your friends. I feel like it’s a bit too late to be talking to the year 12’s about committing, but after the announcement of your 2023 captains today I hope you and everyone in year 11 can push this message next year.

To summarise, we need to limit negative comments and encourage girls to commit to sports as this will assist our teams in the future. 

Once again, I would like to congratulate those students who were apart of the athletics team that inspired these points. All the girls really stepped up and gave it their all (we had some students in seven or eight events!) and helped produce this amazing result. I would also like to give another congratulations to the 2023 Sports Captain, Sophia Papantoniou, who I know you will do a great job next year.