St Mary’s enriches sports offering with new appointments

Hot on the heels of the grand opening of our Long Road sports ground, St Mary’s is expanding their sports provision even further with a series of new appointments and upcoming opportunities. Sports are high on the agenda at St Mary’s, not only due to their positive affect on wellbeing, but as part of our mission to support women’s education and counteract negative stereotypes.

According to a report by the charity Women in Sport, more than a million girls who describe themselves as “sporty” lose interest in exercise after they leave primary school “as a consequence of deep-rooted gender stereotypes”. We aim to reverse this trend by providing enjoyable sports lessons in a wide variety of activities for all our students in our single-sex environment, as well as regular opportunities to celebrate sporting successes and build confidence. With lessons taking place on the new courts and fields at Long Road, combined with new expertise from specialist coaches, there has never been a better time to enjoy sports at St Mary’s.

This term, cricket coach, Nathan Scarff, is joining the team, to help make the most of outdoor sports this summer. Nathan is a level 2 cricket coach and is the current lead coach of Suffolk U15 girls. He also works as an academy coach in the indoor center at Lords Cricket ground. We are excited to advance our cricket offering with his specialist knowledge. Finally, David Grammar will also join St Mary’s as a hockey coach next academic year, with further plans for a dedicated netball coach too.

On top of these new appointments, we have a range of events coming up to deepen and encourage enjoyment of sports at St Mary’s. We will be celebrating our students’ success in the Sport Awards this term, and will be running a Disney Netball Festival trip with 50 students currently in Years 7-9 in October half term 2022. Plans are also afoot to develop our Sports Scholars' programme even further, to encourage those at the top of their sporting game at St Mary’s.

We continue to be on the lookout for new ways to support sports at St Mary’s, to break down stereotypes and encourage our students’ love of sports. We are therefore planning to run a Woman in Sport survey again in the summer term this year to gain a better understanding of the impact sport is having on the students and how to further support them.

Watch this space for further updates, and we hope our students enjoy all the new developments next term!