Raring to go! The beginning of the 'Olympic Run' around Bradley Stoke

In celebration of National Sports Week and to promote working closely with their neighbouring schools, Bradley Stoke Community School organised two Olympic Runs on the afternoon of Thursday 1st July.

PE Teacher Ed Owen and seven Year 9 students ran with two specially hand-made ‘olympic torches’ to each of Bradley Stoke’s six primary schools in turn. Abbie Pearce, Duncan Bendall, Manga Ndlovu, Kate Brown, Sean Fahay, Jamie Williams and Will Macaulay set off from BSCS at 1.30pm on their 6+mile challenge.

Pupils and staff at St Mary’s Primary School gave the group a fabulous loud welcome, with cheers and by forming a human horseshoe for the runners to perform a lap of honour. The entourage collected two St Mary’s pupils, Tasha Draper and Nathan Hall, both in year 6, plus a chaperone , and continued their run to Baileys Court. Pupils from Baileys Court lined both sides of their playing field, clapping and cheering and enabling the runners to arrive in style. The pace had been so fast that the group were ahead of schedule, so a few impromptu races were held between the secondary school pupils and between the St Mary’s and Baileys Court pupils. The crowd went wild!

Heidi Sermulins and George Curnock, both in year 6, joined the run at Baileys Court, and continued with the BSCS students on to Meadowbrook. As they rounded the corner the group could hear the enthusiastic clapping and cheerig, and they were welcomed onto the school field with a massive human circle to run through, lined on both sides by pupils. The olympic torches were passed on to Sadelle and Jack , both in year 5 who could not wait to start their leg of the journey.

At Wheatfield there was yet more cheering, plus an impresssive Mexican wave from the whole school on the playground. Not content with putting two children forward for the event, Wheatfield produced 5 runners: year 6 Adam Thorpe and Matthew Farrant; year 5 Rebecca Halford and Emily Smart plus year 4 Matthew Binding. All 5 enjoyed the 0.8 mile run to Holy Trinity (they had looked up the distance so knew what they were letting themselves in for!)

Sports Day was in full flow at Holy Trinity school when the group arrived, though this did not dampen the welcome given. The runners enjoyed a lap of honour inside a human circle on the playground, before picking up the new team members Dominic Williams-Sarkar and Tasha Okoye. At this stage the year 9 runners were beginning to tire, so the year 6′s had to be asked not to run too fast for fear of leaving the older pupils behind!

On arrival at Bowsland Green, the last of the 6 primary schools, year 9′s took the opportunity to lie down on the grass for 2 minutes – but were soon on their feet again taking part in a couple of sprinted laps around the playing field – much to the delight of all the onlookers. Tejaswi Tiruvuru and Ben Sayers, both in year 6, took the olympic torches and joined the team for the final leg of the challenge back to BSCS. By this time, everyone was grateful to PE teacher, Ian Henry, who showed them a short-cut down through the Three Brooks Nature Reserve.

The team arrived back at BSCS to cheers from fellow students just after 3pm – well ahead of schedule and enthused by the experience. Tejaswi from Bowsland Green summed up everyone’s thoughts when she said “That was tiring but great fun!”

Bradley Stoke Matters followed the whole event with a camera (by bike) and you can see a range of photos of the whole challenge on our flickr album.

Wheatfield Pupils set the pace for BSCS students to keep up!

At the same time a Senior Olympic Run took place, with BSCS pupils and a member of staff taking their own olympic torch between the schools in the Concorde Partnership – from Bradley Stoke to Patchway, to Filton High and back to BSCS.

The events were a great success, and culminated in a joint schools cross country festival in the late afternoon involving pupils in years 3 to 6. Congratulations to Dena Young and Ed Owen for organising such a great day!

We are pleased to have posted a full set of photographs depicting the challenge from beginning to end on our Flickr photo album. Do feel free to have a browse.