Primary Inclusion Archery June 2023

Wednesday 07^th June 2023 – Today Y6 sports leaders from Old Priory hosted one of our PSSP Primary Archery events. Before the teams arrived, the leaders were given some instruction on how to safely set up their equipment and how to coach the children on how to shoot the bow. After some quick practice ourselves, the schools started to arrive so it was straight into it. We had teams from Drake, Montpelier, Old Priory, Plympton St. Maurice, Yealmpstone Farm and St. Budeaux with us today. After speaking with some of the teachers, it became apparent that there were quite a lot of nervous children at the beginning – looking around once we had started though, it was clear that these nerves had been replaced by huge smiles. One young man told me ‘I love Archery now’ so that completely made my day – the power of sport! When they first arrived, each child had some instruction from the leaders and 3 practice arrows to get them started before we recorded any scores. Instead of competing against each other and other teams, this event is designed to be a Personal Best competition: each child scores as many points as they can with 3 arrows and then on their next go, they are encouraged to try to beat that score. 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 the Old Priory Sports Leaders – you were fantastic with the children and really ensured that they all had a great time! Thank you to all of the staff that brought their teams along today – I hope that you enjoyed watching our new archers as much as I did – I did notice some of you couldn’t resist having a go yourselves! Thank you as well to Ms Roberts for organising the venue and leaders for me. I look forward to seeing you all at another event very soon.