Our Summer of Sport
18th October 2022
With the Commonwealth Games coming to the West Midlands in 2022, Goldsmith took every opportunity to give their children the chance to experience the Games. The Academies participation started in October with Goldsmith being invited to represent Walsall at the Black Country Winter School Games which was also one of the launch days for the Commonwealth Games in the Black Country. The school continued to support Walsall Borough events with Goldsmith taking 60 children to 5 different experience days which were aimed to inspire non- sporty children in sport.
As the Games got closer in the Summer the school hosted a Commonwealth Games Day for every child in KS2 to take part in Commonwealth Games activities all day. The school invited a range of different experts sports coaches and groups into school to allow children to take part in tai chi, rugby, cricket, basketball, bhangra dancing, badminton, table tennis, archery, volleyball. The children also participated in a cultural workshop of how the Commonwealth Unites people led by Commonwealth Games Birmingham Staff. Children had a fantastic day and the providers were very complimentary of well over 200 children taking part in sport all day.
With KS2 children enjoying this day immensely, some of our older Y6 pupils supported KS1 and EYFS in their own Commonwealth Games Morning where the Y6 sports leaders led a range of different sport stations for the younger children to play. The younger children enjoyed interacting with the Y6 role models and helped them to play activities in athletics, netball, cricket, basketball and bowls.
Goldsmith Primary Academy were also lucky to invite Tom Davis a former Commonwealth Judo Champion into school to inspire the children in an assembly, practical judo session with Y3 pupils and a special session with gifted and talented sports pupils in the school.
The final school sporting event of the year was the annual school sports day, which took on a Commonwealth Games twist. Pupils were split into 4 Commonwealth countries: Jamaica, Wales, Australia and India. The pupils carried flags and wore stickers of their adopted country for the day and competed to collect points in various sport stations testing their running, jumping, throwing, kicking, aiming and balance skills. With the points added up across the school from EYFS-Y6 Jamaica were crowned the champions of the Goldsmith Commonwealth Sports day with 3102 points.
If that was not enough, 62 lucky pupils were able to experience the Games first hand with tickets to the beach volleyball and a morning athletics session. On Monday 1st August 31 children accompanied staff to Smithfield’s to watch the beach volleyball. Children experienced being part of a large Commonwealth site with live music, big screen and lots of activities before watching 3 beach volleyball matches. The children definitely got into the party atmosphere of the volleyball supporting the England Men’s team to victory. On the Wednesday 3rd August Goldsmith attended the Alexander Stadium to watch the mornings athletics session. The children were amazed by the size of the 30,000-seater capacity stadium and cheered all athletes on from a large range of Commonwealth countries. They had the added excitement of a firework display and watching Perry the Games Mascot ‘fly’ in the sky to the song Rocket Man.
Goldsmith Primary Academy pupils will remember when the Commonwealth Games came to the West Midlands.
