This Girl Can!
Yesterday, coincidentally on what would be the 100th birthday of famous female athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen – often cited as the ‘athlete of the century’, I was fortunate enough to host our annual Sport’s Award Dinner, where many of our girls' sporting efforts were rightly celebrated.
As well as being, as always, thoroughly impressed and humbled by our girls' achievements at the dinner, I also paused to think about the importance of sport for girls – no matter what their shape, size or ability. At St Mary’s School, Cambridge we recognise the value that a well-rounded education brings to our girls, and sport therefore plays an integral part in our daily lives at all levels.
The Sport England campaign ‘This Girl Can’ has much research on how regular sport can improve girls' health - mentally and physically - social skills and the economy itself, but their research has also highlighted how millions of women and girls are afraid to exercise because of fear of judgement. I am delighted that we appear to be bucking that trend, as more and more we are seeing a new sense of confidence in our girls – the sportswomen of tomorrow – and it is heartening that as a school we have so many sporting successes to celebrate every year.
Hopefully as attitudes towards women and sport slowly edge towards a more equal footing, and our girls show future generations that this girl definitely can, Mary Ward’s vision that ‘‘By God’s grace, in time women will come to do much” will certainly ring true for sport.
Below are just some of our sporting achievements that we have been celebrating over the past year. I would like to pass on my congratulations to all girls who took part in sport this year.
Netball
The Year 8 netball team started the year by attending the Girls’ School Association netball tournament in Shrewsbury and enjoyed competing against schools from all over the country.
Students were selected to attend the satellite netball academy.
The U14 ESNA netball team came 3rd in the Independent School County qualifying tournament and reach the semi-final in the County schools tournament. The U16 ESNA netball team has had a very successful season winning both the Independent School County qualifying tournament and the County schools tournament beating all their opponents and are this year’s County Champions. They went on to represent Cambridgeshire in the Regional Schools Championship in January, enjoyed playing against tough opposition and finished 4th in their pool.
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We have entered each year group in their respective netball district tournaments, with Years 11, 10 and 8 winning their tournament and becoming this year’s District Champions. The Year 7 team were runners up and this qualifies them to play in the Cambridge and Peterborough Summer School Games Festival on Thursday 28 June at St Ives.
Hockey
All year groups enjoyed taking part in the Cambridge District Hockey Tournaments. The U16 and U18 teams competed in the County Championships. 
Our Sixth Form team has had some excellent results this season, notably, winning matches against Stephen Perse Foundation 1st Xl, Hills road 2nd Xl and King's Ely 1st Xl.
Several students were selected to attend the junior hockey development centre; some have progressed to the junior academy centre and we have one student who is in the national performance centre.
Athletics
St Mary’s has a thriving sports programme and Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 enjoyed taking part in local athletic fixtures and performed particularly well in the District Schools' Olympic Cup.
Our Year 8 team finished 6th, while the Years 7, 9 and 10 teams won their age-groups and are this year’s district champions, having faced fierce competition. Our girls went on to compete in the Eastern Region and National Athletics Competitions.
Cross Country
Three teams were entered in the Cambridge District Cross Country Championships and had some excellent individual performances. Millie R won her race and is this year’s intermediate District Champion as well as our games captain Annie Q winning the girls senior event. Six girls qualified to represent the district in the County Championships. Five then qualified to represent the County in the Anglian Regional Championship. Four went one stage further and qualified to run in the English Schools National Championship: the girls thoroughly enjoyed the experience, despite the cold, mud and snow!
Gymnastics
We are delighted to report that this year’s Gymnastics Display, held on 6 February, was an outstanding success. The evening was opened by some of our Dance scholars. This was followed by the Year 6 Junior School Display who produced a dynamic and skilful routine. We had forty-one Senior School girls take part who all worked hard to create their own unique and challenging routines. The display closed with the trampette and vault group, who dazzled and dizzied us with their somersaulting and tumbling. All those involved should be proud of their tremendous achievement: it is a true representation of how gymnastics is enjoyed throughout the school. Awards were given out for years of service, with two students achieving five years and two achieving si
x.
Olenska SH. won the Frances Hawken Gymnastics salver.
Seven Year 11 students were presented with the Roy Burrell Award which celebrates sporting success within the Cambridge schools. They were rewarded for their achievements in their sport, as well as continuing commitment to school sport. Emma W. was also awarded the accolade of “Runner Up: Sportswoman of the Year 2018” for her flourishing football career.
Tennis
In last year’s Summer Term, our girls played many tennis matches and the Year 10 team once again enjoyed representing the school in the LTA tennis league.
Rowing
One of our strategic visions is not only be a school that rows but to become a well-recognised rowing school, where students can train at national standard and beyond.
Mr Cain, our new Rowing Co-ordinator, is establishing an environment for rowing development, where students can follow a pathway to reach their full 
potential in rowing and become well-rounded athletes.
We have started to expand the rowing program from our 6th Form rowing all the way to Year 7. We have started to build a rowing squad with a systematic training program that cuts across years and enables individual rowers to improve their skills according to their ability. Ambitious rowers will eventually compete at national levels, and in the years to come we hope to develop potential GB rowers.
We now offer a variety of sessions during the week but also on weekends. During the recent Easter holiday, we had our first rowing camp where students were able to row daily. The camps will soon be available throughout the calendar year.
All of this, of course is to facilitate our students who have the desire to row. We have seen a great increase in numbers of students taking up rowing this year with current numbers reaching over sixty students.
Many of our rowers have done extremely well this year, with several learning to scull over the ice winter period, starting with their core exercise and completing their first rowing trial.
Our rowers have already developed some key skills which are the seeds of true rowing athletes, such as, commitment and consistency in rowing, ownership, professionalism and pride in their training with the ability to create unity among all athletes to generate an enjoyable and happy environment.
Achievement beyond School
As well as all the achievements girls have gained representing the school, we have lots of students who are experiencing success in their chosen sport outside of school, whether it is achieving county, regional, national or international recognition. We actively encourage our students to join sports clubs outside school, as well as in, and can help guide them where necessary. This enables them to stretch themselves by playing in both junior and adult teams whilst reaching their potential; we have lots of girls playing in local hockey, netball, athletics, gymnastics and tennis clubs. This also gives our girls the opportunity to try additional individual sports. We currently have girls participating in football, pistol shooting, triathlon, fencing and 3-day eventing to name but a few, with some of these girls achieving great successes.