Going for gold! Olympic lockdown challenge keeps girls active

It is vital to find ways to keep active in lockdown and Kimberley Pearson, our Head of Prep Sport has created an ambitious goal that is inspiring our girls to gain points for their House.

In Pre-prep, our youngest pupils are working hard to complete four activities a week in an Olympic Challenge, spurred on by the reward of gaining gold, silver or bronze medals, all contributing to their House points. Girls are filling in medal records each week, and reporting back to Miss Pearson on their hard work and progress.

Continuing the Olympic theme, Prep girls have set their sights on Tokyo. With a 9561km route plotted from Cambridge to Tokyo, each girl completes and records their daily exercise and distances covered via Teams, using the Olympic Exercise Tracker. Every minute of exercise counts as a Kilometre travelled. Again, a competitive element is added, as each House is working together to build up their total distance covered. So far the Elms team are out front, having already racked up over 1,000 kilometres.

In Senior School, girls in Year 7 and 8 are competing against each other in a race that takes them from London, to Rio, then to Tokyo and Paris. Again, they are racking up the distances using the Exersice Tracker and currently, Year 8 girls are ahead - but only by a small margin. They are about to reach Rio, when they do they will take an Olympic Challenge which will be to complete 2016 keepy-uppies (as a team).

Keep up the good work...!

Kimberly Pearson comments: "We wanted to introduce an accessible, fun sports challenge that would encourage girls to step away from their screen and to keep their fitness levels up during lockdown. Despite the January weather, our House teams have risen to the challenge and we are charting their collaborative progress every week."

Additional sporting enrichment activities continue to be available as part of our Junior School remote learning programme - with everything from yoga and running, to hockey and netball. This approach is part of a wider priority to support the mental health and happiness of girls during this period of school closure.

Explore a parent perspective on Lockdown III