Cross Country 

To celebrate the diverse sporting opportunities on offer at the school, we decided to take a closer look at our sailing team by asking Ruth Owen, our sailing coach, some questions after a busy training session! How many pupils are in the sailing team? We currently have 16 in the Senior Squad. What is the race you are currently training for? Our next event is the UEA Unicorn - a Team Racing event taking place at Wroxham Broad in two weeks time. We will be taking two teams, with 6 pupils in each. We attend a number of racing events throughout the year. Is it cold on the water this time of year? About 12 degrees with the wind chill yesterday - everyone has to wear a wetsuit at this time of year! What were you up to in training yesterday? We mixed pairs up a lot yesterday to try and select the squad for our event. Were you practicing specific skills? Starts! Pre-start in team racing lasts for 3 minutes, and each race is only about 8 minutes long. It's short, sharp and highly competitive. Each team will do about 8 - 10 races, (against 8-10 different teams) each day of the event. Then more broadly, what year groups can join the sailing club? We have both Senior and Intermediate options for sailing at school. Seniors sail Tuesday afternoons in games throughout the year, Intermediates sail Thursday afternoon in games during Michaelmas and Trinity Term. Senior sailing is currently restricted to race training, but we will take complete beginners in the Intermediate squad. How often do you meet? Once a week. Where do you meet? We sail at Norfolk Broads Yacht Club.

On Tuesday 4 November, 13 runners from the Cross Country Club travelled to Witney in Oxfordshire for the Regional Round of the English Schools Cross Country Cup, having qualified last month in Woodbridge. The course was flat and fast, and the competition was fierce, with all runners having qualified from their county rounds to get there. In the Junior Boys race both Joshua Bevan and Jonty Croskell were racing against pupils a year older and ran strongly to finish 64 th and 85 th respectively. In the Junior Girls race, there were 80 runners from 14 schools, and our girls finished 11th, with excellent performances from Annabelle Hitchings, Iris Wells, Poppy Short and Emi Muntingh. Emi came 7 th overall. In the Senior Girls, our first finisher was Minnie Andrews in 25th place. The rest of the team were closely bunched with Bea Green, Izzy Last and Amelie Ivie all finishing in the top 35 and Olivia Allen and Bella Muntingh also finishing high in the results to secure 8 th place for the team. Well done to all those who took part.