Senior School news

Norwich School orienteering group help Norfolk to historic victory

15 March 2018

Norwich School orienteering group help Norfolk to historic victory

The great Roger Bannister, who sadly passed away last week, accomplished many things as well his famous 4-minute mile. One of his less well-known exploits was that he helped to introduce the sport of orienteering to England in the 1960s. British Orienteering is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. In all those 50 years, Norfolk have never managed to qualify for the final of orienteering's national club competition ...until now.

On Sunday 11th March, Norfolk took on Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire for a place in the final. The team was made up of 57 people, ranging in age from 11 to 85, and included 14 pupils, parents and staff from Norwich School. The match took place at Shouldham Warren, near Swaffham, and was spread over 9 courses for different ages.

From the Norwich School contingent the main contributors were the Blythe-Bartram family. Tom (L6S) won the U18 race and William (L5S) won the U14 race, while Mum Katherine and Dad Philip were 3rd and 9th on their respective courses. Also in the U14s, Herbie Holness (L4P) was 3rd boy, while Imogen James (L4B) and Daisy Martin (L4P) were 2nd and 3rd girls. In the U18s, James Price (M5C) was 2nd, Charlie Austin (L6P) 5th and Patrick Thomas (M5E) 6th, while James's Dad Paul was 8th on his course.

The individual performance of the day came from Steven Denby (L6N), who had been promoted to a senior course for tactical reasons. Steven ran a near-perfect race to come 2nd, and in the process become the first ever pupil to beat Dr. Richardson, who came 3rd.

All of these results contributed points in the overall team competition, in which Norfolk emerged triumphant. Each county's score is made up of their best 25 results. In the case of Norfolk, 9 of our top 25 scores came from the Norwich School community. 

These results mean that Norfolk now qualify for the national final, which takes place in Staffordshire in October.