Record Numbers attend MGB's School Sports Tournaments
Following a record breaking 2009 which saw the Maccabi GB Schools and Sports programme reach more than 3,000 young people (a rise of 20% compared to 2008), last week's Year 5 and 6 Primary Football Tournament engaged an incredible 400 young people from 16 Jewish Primary schools - 39 teams in total - making it our largest school's sport tournament since they began over a decade ago. As well as the 400 participants it was also great to see over 100 spectators coming along to add their support.
Over the past two weeks the Maccabi GB School Sports department, in partnership with UJIA, has delivered three school sports tournaments engaging a record total of 630 young people. These tournaments provide the only occasion when the Jewish schools join together for sporting activities.
Sinai won the Year 5 and 6 girls tournament, winning against a strong Simon Marks team and the boy's tournament was won by Naima, beating HJPS in a penalty shootout in the final.
A total of 16 teams and 160 young people from 8 schools attended the Year 3 and 4 Primary Football Tournament at the start of February. The tournament was won by Independent Jewish Day School, a school that benefits from Maccabi GB's free PE curriculum lessons (see notes to editor for more information).
70 girls from four secondary schools attended the Secondary Girls' Basketball tournament hosted by JFS last Monday. The Years 7/8 group was won by Immanuel College. Hasmonean enjoyed double success in the older groups winning both the Years 9/10 and the 11+ groups.
Maccabi GB Schools and Sports Co-ordinator, Matt Travers was extremely pleased with the events over the past few weeks, "To have engaged 630 young people in just three tournaments is a fantastic achievement. We have seen boys and girls competing between the ages of seven and seventeen. The quality has been great and the atmosphere created at the events has been positive and supportive for the young players. As more young people are given the chance to take part in these tournaments their popularity will continue to increase. Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the tournaments is seeing the less confident and skilled pupils participating and receiving fantastic encouragement from the spectators. This will not only help to increase their levels of confidence as they move into secondary schools but also shows other young people that sport is not exclusively for the best players."
The next Maccabi GB School Sports tournaments will take place in March, with the Primary Girls Netball and Secondary Badminton and Table Tennis tournaments.
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