Wednesday 18th June 2025 – Today was our last PSSP Inclusion Football event for this academic year – and what a way to finish. We had glorious sunshine and 5 teams attending, representing Cann Bridge, Courtlands, Pennycross, Yealmpstone Farm and Leigham Primary. I say this every year and it remains true – these are some of my favourite events of our whole calendar. It is just so fantastic to see how the children go from nervous on arrival to beaming smiles and red faces after just the first game. Once again I am so incredibly grateful to the amazing team of Sports Leaders from Stoke Damerel – they have supported us all year and are brilliant with refereeing, scoring and with the children in general. Thank you to Miss Crowe and Miss Plumpton for arranging this great team for us. This event is a round-robin so every school gets to play all of the others. 5 points are awarded for a win, 3 points for a draw and 1 point for a loss. Once all of the games are played, the scores are collated and we present the children with their certificates on the main pitch. Congratulations to Yealmpstone Farm who were our overall winners today. Well done to everyone who took part – I really hope that you all sign up to next years’ program of dates – they are in the planning stage right now. Keep an eye on the PSSP website and get booking. I hope to see you all soon.

Mrs Claire Cormack - PE Specialist Teacher

Plymouth School Sports Partnership

Friday 06th June 2025 – What an exciting morning of sport at Old Priory Junior Academy. I had the pleasure of working with the Y5 Sports Leaders today to get them ready to deliver our PSSP Primary Inclusion Archery event. 7 teams from PSSP schools across the city came along to take part in our fun festival for children in mainstream and special schools. Children from Cann Bridge, Old Priory, Leigham, Pomphlett, Chaddlewood, St. Matthew’s and Elburton all came along to learn some new skills and compete in different personal challenge-style events. As each team arrived, they were introduced to the young leaders they would be working with all morning, and they were taken through the key points of how to use the equipment; after a few quick practice arrows, we were straight into the competition with each child having 3 chances to score as highly as possible with 3 arrows. Instead of competing against others, this personal challenge event is designed to encourage children to improve at their own individual pace – striving to score more points with 3 arrows over several rounds. While they were waiting for their turn, there were archery worksheets for the children to complete and a ‘school crest’ challenge which resulted in some very creative designs. After the highest score competition, each of the leaders took their group through some fun games and challenges. I would like to say a huge thank you to our leaders today – you were fantastic with the children and really ensured that they all had a great time! Thank you as well to Ms. Roberts for all of her help in organising this event. Thank you to all the staff that brought their teams along today – I hope that you enjoyed watching our new archers as much as I did. I look forward to seeing you all at another event very soon.

Mrs Cormack - PE Specialist Teacher. 

Plymouth School Sports Partnership

   Above: Old Priory Junior Academy Sports Leaders

Thursday 22^nd May 2025 - Another exciting morning at Plympton Academy today as our sports leaders hosted our annual Y1 Cricket festival. We had 4 teams today: Chaddlewood x2, Plympton Plympton St. Maurice and Boringdon. Prior to their arrival, the sports leaders completed their training so they were ready to welcome our guests and get them underway immediately.

First off, the leaders organised a warm up game for each team which is designed to develop their fielding skills and an awareness of when they need to chase the ball. After that, it was on to batting skills and learning when/how to score runs. Then it was time to get competitive… In a variation of Kwik Cricket, we looked at how many runs each school could score as a team over 3 rounds. It was fantastic to see so many children enjoying playing and having so much fun with their team mates. The more we played, the more everyone improved and soon there were some high scores coming in. There were quite a few superstars in our midst as well so we will be signposting to our local Cricket clubs!  At the end of the event we said a huge thank you to the Plympton Academy sports leaders and everyone who took part received a well-deserved certificate. Congratulations to all of the children taking part today – what fantastic team work – we hope that you all enjoyed it. I can’t wait for our next event – check out the PSSP website to see what is coming up.

Mrs Cormack

PE Specialist Teacher for Plympton Academy.

Thursday 08^th May 2025 – A deceptively chilly afternoon at Tor Bridge High School for our Y3/4 Kwik Cricket event.

Wednesday 30th April 2025 – What a scorcher for our termly PSSP Inclusion Football event. 5 teams attended to compete in our friendly tournament aimed at promoting teamwork, respect and having lots of fun. Represented today were Cann Bridge, Courtlands, Pennycross, Montpelier and Keyham Barton – all of the children arrived excited and a little nervous but keen to get going. After a brief welcome, they were soon off to their pitches ready to play. I am incredibly fortunate at these events to have the outstanding support from the Sports Leaders at Stoke Damerel Secondary School – they referee and score all of the games but also support the children/teams and are absolutely brilliant at it! This event is a round-robin  so every school gets to play all of the others. 5 points are awarded for a win, 3 points for a draw and 1 point for a loss. Once all of the games are played, the scores are collated and we present the children with their certificates on the main pitch. Congratulations to Montpelier who were our overall winners today. Well done to everyone who took part, I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and would be keen to come back again. Check out the PSSP website for more upcoming Inclusion events. 

Mrs Claire Cormack 

PE Specialist Teacher, Plymouth School Sports Partnership 

Thursday 24th April 2025 – This afternoon 4 teams (3 from St. Matthew’s and 1 from Thornbury) came along to Tor Bridge High to take part in our annual non-competitive coaching festival. Today’s focus was not on winning but on helping children to develop their Tag Rugby skills and team work ahead of the PSSP competition later in the term. We had a real mix of experience in the teams but we had the talented Sports Leader Casey on hand to coach and lead the games – huge thank you Casey! All of the teams had the opportunity to play against each other but our super referee and teachers were encouraged to coach throughout and take the opportunity to spot those consistent errors and work on them. I really enjoyed today’s event – no pressure of the win just children enjoying being physically active and playing sport with their friends. For some of our children it was brushing up on their skills and for some, today was about learning something new and getting used to the many Tag Rugby laws. Well done to everyone who took part today, I hope you enjoyed it and best of luck in future competitions.

Mrs Claire Cormack

PE specialist Teacher for Plympton Academy