MAIDSTONE NEWS

Jul 10 - Kent School Games Finals

Finally, after months of local heats and trials, our local finalists took part in the Kent School Games Finals in Canterbury which ran from Jun 30th to July 4th at a range of... read more...

Jun 10 - Mini Red Tennis Festival

Red ball mini tennis is for players aged 8 and under. It is played on smaller courts with shorter rackets and softer balls. It’s just like the real game and gives... read more...

Jun 10 - Primary Athletics Championships

This competition, held on International Olympic Day, was attended by 17 teams from 14 different schools. Teams comprised 6 boys and 6 girls from Year 5/6 and although... read more... Download: Full Results

Jun 10 - Girl's Inter Cricket Tournament

Inter Cricket bridges the gap between Kwik Cricket which is played at primary school and full hardball cricket traditionally played at secondary school and club level. Teams... read more...

Jun 10 - Primary Schools Kwik Cricket Festival

This annual tournament was organised by KCB District Development Officer Phil Pass and was held at Maidstone Cricket Club. As always, the turnout was excellent... read more...

Jun 10 - Maidstone Mini World Cup

The Maidstone Mini World Cup was held on Friday 11th June at Mote Park. It was a partnership event led by Maidstone School Sports Partnership and supported by Maidstone Borough... read more...

May 10 - Tri Golf Festival

The ever popular Tri Golf Festival took place at Oakwood Park on Thursday May 27th and was attended by 12 teams from 10 schools. Sports Leaders from St Simon Stock School delivered a... read more...

May 10 - Key Steps Gymnastics Festival

This was the first Key Steps Festival delivered by the Maidstone SSP and was organised superbly by Charlie Stow, the Partnerships Gymnastics Coordinator. A total of 24 teams... read more...

Jul 10 - KSG

Jul 10 - Kent School Games Finals

Finally, after months of local heats and trials, our local finalists took part in the Kent School Games Finals in Canterbury which ran from Jun 30th to July 4th at a range of sporting venues. The Kent School Games, thought to be the largest school sports event in Europe has seen over 30,000 young people aged 4-16, competing in heats and trials in 38 different sports. Around 6,000 battled it out for the top spots in the finals.

The Kent School Games which piloted in 2008 and is organised by Kent County Council in partnership with the School Sports Partnerships has been recognised by central government as a model for a UK School Games and is something Kent should be extremely proud of.

For more information about the finals please go to http://www.kentschoolgames.com/

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Jun 10 - Mini Tennis

Jun 10 - Mini Red Tennis Festival

Red ball mini tennis is for players aged 8 and under. It is played on smaller courts with shorter rackets and softer balls. It’s just like the real game and gives players opportunities to have long rallies and play different types of shots.This Festival was for pupils in Year 3/4 and was aimed at those players that do not already regularly compete outside of school. The Festival was new to the Maidstone SSP calendar this year and was delivered in partnership with Maidstone Tennis Academy during the Wimbledon fortnight!

Teams were initially taken through a group warm up and coaching session before being taught how to play and score their own mini doubles matches. All players had plenty of opportunities to take part in matches against different schools with all results used to calculate the final winners. A total of 16 teams from 9 different Primary Schools took part in the Festival after receiving coaching through the School Sports Partnership so there were a lot of matches to get through! The overall winners were Barming School so congratulations to their players and staff.

Thank you to Maidstone Tennis Academy and to all staff from the Maidstone SSP that worked to deliver a positive new addition to the competition calendar.

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Jun 10 - Primary Athletics

Jun 10 - Primary Athletics Championships

This competition, held on International Olympic Day, was attended by 17 teams from 14 different schools. Teams comprised 6 boys and 6 girls from Year 5/6 and although individual team members each had their own events to compete in, this was very much a team competition. Each competitor took part in 1 track event, 1 jump, 1 throw and 1 relay with cumulative points being added up to give an overall team score. The events 75m, 150m, 600m, Speed Bounce, Standing Long Jump, Standing Triple Jump, Mega Vortex Howler, Shot Putt and Hammer plus a 4 x 50m relay delivered by Maidstone SSP staff and Sports Leaders from St Simon Stock.

This event always seems to fall on a scorching day and this year was no different! Plenty of water was on hand to keep the athletes hydrated and teams sheltered under gazebos to try to keep in the shade whenever they could.

The overall winners were Palace Wood with St Francis finishing in the runners up spot. For a full set of results, please click on the 'Full Results' link.

Thank you to everyone that was involved in this successful Championships!

Download: Full Results

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Jun 10 - Inter Cricket

Jun 10 - Girl's Inter Cricket Tournament

Inter Cricket bridges the gap between Kwik Cricket which is played at primary school and full hardball cricket traditionally played at secondary school and club level. Teams comprise 8 players and matches are 8 overs a side.

Maidstone Girl's Grammar 'A' and 'B', New Line Learning Academy and Aylesford School Sports College competed in this U13 competition which is designed to keep girls playing cricket that are may not yet ready to play the full sided game. Each team played each other once at Leeds & Broomfield Cricket Club.

For the second year running, the winners were Maidstone Girl's Grammar 'A' with Aylesford finishing as runners-up. District Development Officer Phil Pass was on hand to offer some coaching advice and provide information to all players about local opportunities to play outside of school.

This has now become a regular fixture on the competitions calendar with some schools also taking part in the County level Inter Cricket competitions run by Kent Cricket Board.

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Jun 10 - Kwik Cricket

Jun 10 - Primary Schools Kwik Cricket Festival

This annual tournament was organised by KCB District Development Officer Phil Pass and was held at Maidstone Cricket Club. As always, the turnout was excellent with 32 teams taking part in the Festival. Kwik Cricket is an extremely popular sport and with the added incentive of a place at the Kent Kwik Cricket Finals, the matches started very competitively. Teams were initially placed into 8 groups and played each other in the first round robin phase. Following the initial phase, the group winners then took part in a knockout phase.

The overall winners were East Farleigh Primary School, following on from their success at the Mini World Cup just three days before! Well done to all teams and good luck to East Farleigh in the Kent Finals!

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Jun 10 - World Cup

Jun 10 - Maidstone Mini World Cup

The Maidstone Mini World Cup was held on Friday 11th June at Mote Park. It was a partnership event led by Maidstone School Sports Partnership and supported by Maidstone Borough Council, Kent Messenger and Maidstone United. 32 schools took part in the event from across the borough, each allocated a World Cup nation, with the games being based on the real fixtures.

It was a fun and colourful day of Football with youngsters enjoying representing another country in their team shirts they had designed for the day of competition and energetically waving their flags in the opening ceremony.

In a day of fierce competition and penalties the eventual Final was between South Africa and North Korea with North Korea (East Farleigh Primary School) being the eventual World Cup winners. The winning team will go and watch a Premiership game at Fulham next season with the runners up seeing a League 1 match at Charlton Athletic.

Other medals were presented including Plate winners, Plate runners up and Fair Play award.

Sport Minister, Hugh Robertson, who was flying out to South Africa to watch England's opening match, praised the Mini World Cup held in Mote Park. He said: "This event brings together my two Parliamentary interests, as the Sports & Olympics Minister and as one of the local MPs for Maidstone".

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May 10 - Tri-Golf

May 10 - Tri Golf Festival

The ever popular Tri Golf Festival took place at Oakwood Park on Thursday May 27th and was attended by 12 teams from 10 schools. Sports Leaders from St Simon Stock School delivered a number of skills stations that challenged each team's chipping and putting ability in addition to testing each team's longest drive! Each team comprised 5 boys and 5 girls in Year 3/4 and the winners would have the opportunity to represent Maidstone at the Kent School Games Finals in July.

Continuing on in an incredibly successful year, Allington Primary School again finished as overall champions adding Tri-Golf to the number of Festivals that they had already won this year. Well done to all golfers that took part and thank you to the sports leaders from St Simon Stock that were excellent during the afternoon.

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May 10 - Key Steps

May 10 - Key Steps Gymnastics Festival

This was the first Key Steps Festival delivered by the Maidstone SSP and was organised superbly by Charlie Stow, the Partnerships Gymnastics Coordinator. A total of 24 teams from 8 schools took part, entering teams of four pupils across three different age categories. Each team competed in three different sections; Body Management, Vault and Floor Routine.

The gymnastics teams had trained hard to prepare for this Festival and with some expert advice and training from Charlie, a large number of these teams delivered some very impressive performances. The winners in each age group would qualify for the Kent Key Steps Finals and so although the Festival, hosted at Pegasus Gymnastics Club, was to encourage participation, there were some nerves from the gymnasts. Scores were added up from each section to provide overall team scores which were then ranked.

The final winners at each age group were as follows but all categories were extremely well contested;

Year 1/2 - Holy Family

Year 3/4 - Coxheath

Year 5/6 - Holy Family

Good luck to these teams at the County Finals!

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