Senior School

Cara B, Lower 6, represented England in their Under-19 squad at the European Korfball Championships in Türkiye. Cara shares her experience below. Over the Easter holidays, I had the incredible opportunity to represent England as part of the Under-19 squad at the European Korfball Championships in Turkey. Korfball is a mixed-gender team sport that originated in the Netherlands and combines elements of basketball and netball. Each team consists of four male and four female players, with players switching between attack and defence every two goals. The tournament began with group-stage fixtures against Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Portugal and Hungary. Our opening match was against a strong Czech side, who went on to come second overall. Despite a determined effort, we were defeated 17-8 in our first game. However, we responded brilliantly later that day with a convincing 12-2 win over Slovakia. At the end of day 1, we remained in contention for a strong finish in the competition. Day 2 proved to be another challenging but rewarding day. We started with an impressive 13-8 win against Poland before facing Portugal in a crucial match. Despite our efforts, Portugal edged us out in a hard-fought 13-10 defeat at full time after a goal for goal match. We finished the day strongly with an excellent 23-14 victory over Hungary, one of our highest-scoring performances of the tournament. Going into the final day, we were determined to secure the highest possible placing. This set up a closely contested placement match against the host nation, Turkey. The game was highly competitive, with both teams going goal for goal for much of the match. We held our nerve in the closing stages to secure a 16-13 win, earning England a final placing of 5th in Europe. Cara's recent success at Korfball, has been mirrored by an outstanding performance on the netball court this season. Cara was a key member of the Norwich School 1 st VII who finished an impressive 11 th in the country this season, as well as representing her netball club, Norfolk United in the National Premier League, the highest club league in the country. Head of Netball, Gemma Ashton comments "Cara has made an immense contribution to Norwich School Netball since joining us in L6 and her considerable talent on court is matched by her dedication and commitment off it. Her success this season is fully deserved and we are very proud of all she has achieved. Cara is also a Norwich School Sport Scholar, and we are delighted that this programme was able to contribute towards funding her attendance at the Korfball European Championships."

On Thursday 18 June, the inaugural Schools Simulated Shooting Event took place at the Euston Estate near Thetford. Norwich School was represented by two teams each consisting of four pupils. The event was hosted jointly by the Euston Estate and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT); participants were given a warm welcome by the Duke of Grafton before a representative of the GWCT explained how science was used to promote biodiversity and conservation. After a safety briefing, 15 teams, aged from 12-16, from 7 different schools, competed in a 50 bird (clay pigeon) sporting day during which they received expert coaching on each stand to hone their skills.  The day was an enormous success: the teams enjoyed themselves, learnt more about estate management and conservation and improved their skills in the Olympic sport of clay pigeon shooting. Huge thanks to all involved and here's to returning next year!