Wednesday 4th February 2026 – I can’t believe it but we actually had a dry enough morning to go ahead with our PSSP Girls only Inclusive Football event! Just when it seemed the rain might not stop this month! 5 teams from 4 schools came along this morning to take part in our friendly competition aimed at celebrating girls in sport and having a lot of fun. Representing their schools today were students from Plympton Academy, All Saints, Coombe Dean and Stoke Damerel. We had a lot of nervous energy when the teams first arrived – for some, it was their first time representing their school and for others, their first time playing competitive Football. Once we realised that we were all feeling pretty much the same way and once the first whistle blew for kick-off, those nerves were quickly replaced by smiles and rosy cheeks. 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. As always I was fortunate enough to be supported by a fantastic team of Sports Leaders from Stoke Damerel Community College – they did an amazing job of refereeing, scoring and coaching – thank you all so much for making this event run so smoothly. Once all games were completed, we finalised the scores and we had a certificate presentation in the club-house (to warm up our hands). Congratulations to Coombe Dean who were our overall winners today. Well done to everyone who took part, I hope you enjoyed it and would be keen to come along again. Check out the PSSP website for more upcoming events.

Mrs Claire Cormack

PE Specialist Teacher

Plymouth School Sports Partnership

We are nearly halfway through delivering our indoor rowing programme, where we take rowing machines into primary schools and deliver sessions to their year 6 or year 5 children. Today we were at Eggbuckland Vale primary. We saw some impressive results, well done to everyone who took part. The children raced for one minute, then for two minutes and finished with team races. From our visit we hope to see some of the children at our indoor rowing championships event on 1st April 2026 at the Plymouth Life Centre, where they will compete against other schools. We are also delivering sessions at Woodfield and College Road this week, which we are very much looking forward to.

Over the past two weeks we have delivered two Key Stage 1 Indoor Athletics Events attended by 23 schools at the Plymouth Life Centre.  The teams were made up of 6 boys and 6 girls from each school,  over the two events, we had 276 Key Stage 1 pupils taking part in fun, physical activities to develop their fundamental movement and athletic skills.  The young athletes took part in various track races including over and under and obstacle relays.  The field events consisted of them challenging themselves on a balance beam, chest push with a mini basketball, standing long-jump and throwing a foam javelin.  There was a vast amount of support from proud parents and families who turned out to cheer them on.  This was a non-scoring event, it was designed to be fun with the focus on learning new skills and testing themselves in a positive, supportive environment with lots of stickers as rewards!  We are looking forward to hosting our Year 3 & 4 events over the next two weeks.

Monday 19th January 2026 – A great morning of sport today at Tor Bridge High – our fab team of Sports Leaders hosted 8 teams for one of our PSSP Primary Inclusion Boccia events. Children from Pilgrim, Thornbury, Cann Bridge and Widey Court came along to take part in our friendly event, aimed at developing new skills and having a lot of fun. On arrival each school was welcomed and introduced to the sport by our leaders. With a little time for practice, we then dove straight in with playing some games against another team. Boccia is a Paralympic sport that is played from a seated position. It is a target game that involves accuracy and strategy and more importantly, is a lot of fun. We don’t keep any scores at these events, instead the focus is on having fun, meeting other children from different schools and developing our target skills. On arrival the children often seem a little nervous but once we are underway, it is great to see so many smiling faces of children enjoying being active and learning something new. I would like to say a huge thank you to our Tor Bridge Sports leaders – you were so welcoming and really engaged with the children. Thank you as well to all of the staff who brought their children along today – I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Check out the PSSP website for more upcoming Inclusion events. Claire Cormack Plymouth School Sports Partnership PE Specialist Teacher

This week we hosted 36 netball teams at the Plymouth Life Centre for our PSSP Primary Netball Festivals with 300 young people taking part over the 3 days of netball activity.

The week started on Monday with our Fun Festival for students who had no prior experience of netball.  The format of the day was skills-based sessions run by our amazing leaders from Notre Dame, which then led onto mini games to see how the skills linked together.  Eleven schools attended with 12 teams, 100 young players and 12 young leaders.  The leaders had completed the Netball Young Leaders and Officiating Award in December to prepare for the event.

On Wednesday, we held our Development Festival which was for schools who had started to play netball but wanted to play coached games supported by staff to develop knowledge of the rules and positional awareness.  Nine young umpires from Coombe Dean attended the event to officiate the games and to help the young players to understand and enjoy netball.  We hosted 14 teams from 14 schools with 120 young players.

The final event of the week was on Thursday where we hosted our Competitive Festival attended by 10 teams from 10 schools with 80 young players attending.  This event was for those schools who have more experience of playing netball and wanted to play competitive games against other schools.  The games were umpired by 12 young leaders from Notre Dame.

Thank you to all those who worked so hard to get the children to the event including staff and parents who provided transport and to those who walked.  Also, a big thank you to Notre Dame and Coombe Dean and their netball leaders.