The annual inter-academy games was held, this year, on Tuesday 10th July at Grantham Meres Leisure Centre. A full coach-load of students from The Holgate Academy arrived at the leisure centre for the start time of 10am, and quickly established themselves into their roles.

The day was jam-packed full of events and sports, and Holgate students were kept very busy throughout the day. In the morning, our year 7 and 8 students started with the field events while year 9 and 10 students took to the track, alongside students from the other DALP academies.

Every track event had two heats (for both boys and girls) and the top 7 in each event scored scaling points for their academies.

The Holgate Academy had an absolutely brilliant start to the day, finishing 1st in several track and field events for all four of our represented year groups.

Part way through the morning, the groups swapped over, giving the year 7 and 8 students a chance on the track, while the 9s and 10s shone in the field.

At the end of the morning, the scores were very close, with The Holgate Academy in 3rd place, behind National and East Leake Academy (who were the current holders).

The afternoon saw the secondary academies take to the sports hall, where they competed in futsal and handball. Meanwhile, on this very busy day, the DALP primary academies (who had been in the sports hall in the morning) went over to the track to compete in their DALP primary academy athletics events.

It wasn’t just our athletes who worked hard – our staff and students had a huge input in the entire event. Miss Elliott brought representatives from our Student Council to run a stall, which held refreshments and raffle prizes, to raise money for the DALP charity, the Teenage Cancer Trust, and our young sports leaders were kept very busy on the field hosting and managing events, and being runners between staff.

Mr Lambert and Miss Davies tirelessly led field events while Miss Young supported the transition of our students. Mrs Morris was the compere for the whole event, and also had the sole (and very important) responsibility for scoring every event, collating and adding up all the results as they came in for every heat, (for every year group) for both the girls and boys, so that students could have running totals of the scores, and knew what to play for.

The day drew to a close at around 2:45, when all students joined together on the field to hear the scores, and discovering that East Leake had retained their trophy. Thrumpton Primary Academy were the victors in the primary games.

Because Walton Girls School had their girls event scores doubled (for parity of results) Holgate finished in a very close and respectable fifth, but there was not much in the scoreline between third, fourth and fifth places.

It was a very successful and enjoyable event, and The Holgate Academy students should take real pride in their athletic ability, knowing that we should be more than able to improve next year, and become real contenders for the trophy.

Well done to everyone involved!