Sport, fitness and wellbeing activities

It can be challenging to stay fit and active during a national lockdown, especially during the winter months. Usually, our pupils get a large amount of time for sports and fitness during the week, so staff have put together a fantastic programme of activities for pupils to take part in. The sessions cover a large range of sports, skill types and abilities.

Staff from the Senior School have put together an excellent timetable of activities, ranging from morning Yoga and HIIT to improving Rugby, Netball and Cricket skills. Pupils can follow along with video tutorials or take part in live sessions throughout the week. These sessions are so positive for our pupils’ health and wellbeing, encouraging them to spend some important time away from the screen each day.

Our Prep School are currently running the ‘Lockdown Exercise Challenge’ which helps our younger pupils to stay active whilst competing for the most points for their tutor group. Any physical activity that they complete each day is worth one, two or three points depending on the effort level involved. Each week, pupils will submit their points and awards will be given to the tutor groups and individuals with the highest number of points.

Prep pupils have also been set the challenge of ‘Around the World Fitness’. All miles that pupils complete, whether this be through walking, running, riding, cycling or swimming, will be added together to move the grasshopper as far across the world as possible.

For our Pre-Prep children who are learning online, physical activity is built into their day. Our teachers are leading dance classes and even our Outdoor Wild Learning School (OWLS) for the children to enjoy at home. Children of key workers have been keeping active with their usual PE, dance and pilates classes at school.

 

Christmas Prayer Tree

An enormous Christmas tree has appeared in Chapel by the altar. It has been decorated with a huge number of stars from the Pre-Prep and Prep School. Written on each star is a Christmas prayer or wish from a young person. Senior School pupils are now very welcome to write their own star and add it to the tree. It could be a prayer, a star to remember someone that you love but see no longer or maybe just a thought you want to put somewhere.

Charity Christmas Tree Festival at Gresham’s

We are currently holding a Christmas Tree Festival to raise money for a local charity, The Treehouse in Holt. The Chapel has been filled with over forty Christmas trees, all beautifully decorated by members of the Gresham’s community.

Trees represent every year group or boarding house at the Senior, Prep and Pre-Prep schools. The festival symbolically brings the whole Gresham’s family together under one roof at Christmas during a year when it has not been easy to meet together.

The School Chaplain, Father Jack Branford, came up with the idea and put a lot of work in to the organisation of the event. He said “I would like to thank everyone for all of their creativity and hard work in decorating their trees. They all look stunning and will create a beautiful atmosphere for Gresham’s upcoming Christmas events and services.”

The festival is raising money for two charities. The first is our charity of the year, The Treehouse, which is a local charity situated in Holt that aims to help vulnerable children and adults within the community. The second is one of the school’s long term Christmas charity partners, the Buckingham Emergency Food Appeal (BEFA). If you would like to donate to the Christmas Tree Festival you can do so from this weekend on the school Just Giving page: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/Greshamschristmastreefestival2020?invite=true

 

Helene Buckingham appointed as Director of Netball

We are thrilled to announce that we have appointed Helene Buckingham as our Director of Netball.

Helene has coached netball at Gresham’s for 14 years and we are looking forward to benefitting from her expertise full time. She will start in the role in January 2021.

Helene has a wealth of experience, both in coaching and playing netball. Her outstanding playing career saw her representing England at Under 16, Under 19, Under 21 and then in both the development and the National squad. Helene was part of the European winning team for 10 consecutive years from 1995 to 2004, and has represented Norfolk, the Eastern Region and Bedfordshire on many occasions.

Helene’s knowledge of the sport will be invaluable to our netball players. Aside from playing the sport, Helene has had a huge amount of success in coaching netball teams, including Norfolk County Academy, the Mavericks in the Super League and the Thoroughbreds Premiership team. Helene also took victory as Head Coach for the England Under 17 squad when they won the European Championships.