Dear Parents,

I hope your children have had a brilliant week at BSAK. It has been very busy both in the classroom and through the co-curricular programme. It has been fantastic to see so many students attending the sports trials. Most nights we have had in excess of 50 students trying out for teams. Below is an explanation from the PE department regarding the different options available and terminology used. Where we can with fixtures, facilities and staffing permitting we are looking at between 2 and 3 teams per age group. I feel the students have missed out on fixtures over the past couple of years, hence why there is a huge amount of energy from so many to participate.

As you may know, I try to bring observations I see at school through the week or thinking I have done into a story or lesson for us all to reflect upon. This week I am using the sports trials to do this.

I am a great believer that experiences help shape us and I think competitive sport is no exception to this. From my own education in the UK at Primary School through to the start of 6th Form, I always had a love of sport, but was certainly not always chosen to represent the school. In fact, I was unsuccessful at the majority of sports trails at school.

I was in Year 9 when I was first ever selected to play for the school. It was in basketball and rugby. The teams were combined over 2 year groups so the Year 9 students were with Year 10 students. Through Primary and up until that point in Secondary, I had always tried out but never made the teams. When I was eventually selected in Year 9, I was absolutely delighted and very proud. The truth of the matter is I came on the basketball court after my third game having spent the 2 previous matches sitting on the bench as an unused substitute. This didn't matter to me as I was still training and learning. When my PE Teachers, Mr Tansley and Mr Drake substituted me into the game it was only for about a minute. Again, that didn't matter as I was on and despite touching the ball once, I felt I had achieved and contributed.

It was not until Year 12 that I began to show greater promise and eventually during and after my university years went on to play rugby at a reasonable level. Reflecting on this is important to me. Throughout Primary and most of Secondary I could have seen my sporting experience as a failure. Having not been selected time and time again I could have given up. However, I persisted, listened, learned and improved. These are important qualities we hope to develop in all students at BSAK.

There will be times when we are not successful, not reach our immediate goals and feel dejected. This is life, not just sport. However, it is how we respond to these disappointments that will determine how successful we are in the future.

I have related this to my sports journey, but it can be any walk of life. There will be times when our grades are not as high as we had hoped or we were not successful in securing the grades we had hoped for or the part in a drama production or place on a sports team. At that point we have a personal decision to make. We can give up, make excuses and stop or we can dust ourselves down, stand tall and be even more determined to carry on. This is where we can turn a perceived failure into success. Over the coming weeks some students will be unsuccessful in getting selected for a school team. There will be other opportunities, but my advice is to ask the coach for feedback, reflect and act upon that and keep trying. An approach fit not only for sport but also within the classroom and life in general.