Wednesday 02nd July 2025 – What a fantastic day! Today was our annual Primary Disc Golf event at Plympton Academy hosted by some of our talented Sports Leaders. A bright and early start to set up our 12 hole course ready for 20 teams/10 schools. 100 children participated today, representing St. Matthew’s, Austin Farm, Ford, Montpelier, Old Priory, Chaddlewood, Yealmpstone Farm, Mary Dean’s, Bickleigh Down and Plympton St. Maurice. Half of the teams took part in the morning and the rest joined us for the afternoon tee off. After a quick training session on how to throw the disc and putt, we were underway. This event is run with a shot-gun start so each team starts on a different hole and then all move round once they have completed that hole. There is a 8 shot maximum with the idea being to complete each hole in as few shots as possible, just like Golf. Alongside the children’s event, we also had a competition for the staff – who it turns out, are definitely more competitive! There were several prestigious categories to compete for: overall winning team; lowest scoring boy; lowest scoring girl and lowest scoring female and male staff. It was fantastic to see so many children (and adults) enjoying being outside and actively playing. With a mammoth amount of scores in hand at the end of the day, it was off to the computer for me to work out who had won… Congratulations to the St. Matthews’ ‘Atlas’ team who took the top spot in the team category; Talulah from Montpelier for winning the lowest scoring girl; Josh from Ford who won the lowest scoring boy title. Congratulations to Mr. Stein for taking first place in the male staff event and to Mrs Pearce who took the title for the women’s event. Well done to all of our winners – it was my absolute pleasure to visit your schools this morning to drop off all of your prizes. I would like to say a huge thank you to a few people: first off to the fantastic group of sports leaders from Plympton Academy (pictured above) – you were absolutely brilliant with the children and they had such a great time because of it; to the Plympton Academy site team for their help setting up (and also putting in a valiant shift retrieving Discs from various rooftops) and the PE Department for all of your help preparing and on the day; to Tamsin (PSSP) for helping me set up and run the event – I am so grateful to you all! Thank you to all of the staff who brought their teams along – I really hope you enjoyed the event too and I can’t wait to do it all again next year.

Mrs Cormack

PE Specialist Teacher Plympton Academy/Tor Bridge High/PSSP

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