Sport

At St. Edmund's we believe an active, healthy body creates a happy, healthy mind. We provide a wide range of sport for our pupils, catering to both those who relish competition as well as those who just want to have fun and stay fit.

Guided by experienced and passionate coaching and teaching staff, our sports programme encourages growth through opportunities to engage and evolve, regardless of age or ability. We focus on teamwork, leadership skills and good sportsmanship. Our children are encouraged to excel and take pride in a good performance, whilst being taught to be gracious in victory and honourable in defeat.

For further information please see sport details under Lower Prep School, Prep School or Senior School sections of the website.

Facilities

Thanks to our location nestled within 40 acres of Surrey countryside, St. Edmund's offers extensive sporting facilities. We boast an indoor swimming pool, a 9-hole golf course, numerous games fields, cross-country running, off-road mountain bike tracks, floodlit all-weather sports pitches, along with a purpose-built sports hall.  We also work closely with local sports clubs and facilities and our outstanding cricket pitches and all-weather facilities are available to hire.

Fixtures

As a school we communicate our fixtures through our online portal SOCS click on the link HERE to explore further.

Extra-Curricular Sport

We offer an extensive range of extra-curricular sporting options to our pupils including access to paid professional coaching, after school clubs and Saturday Activities.  These options and activities change termly to give a wide variety to those who want to try something new! Some of these are listed below:

Athletics, Cricket,  Football, Fundamental Movement Skills, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Netball, Rugby, Shred (off-road mountain biking), Swim Squad, Tennis, Trampolining, Triathlon and Volleyball.

Events

We love hosting events here at St. Edmund’s and our sports department is no different. We regularly stage whole school and inter-school competitions such as touch rugby, swimming galas, colour runs and cross-country challenges with our competitors finishing with a much-deserved hot chocolate and cookie! 

Another favourite event is ‘Boats’. This unusually named swimming race features friendly form competitions along with some rather wacky teacher races.

Webinars and talks about topics such as nutrition and sports psychology are also available to parents and pupils.

Our sports days are always exceptional, with highly competitive track and field events between all students and their peers.  The Prep School Divisions and Senior Houses create huge team spirit where the school comes together in a fun filled action packed day with something for everyone … even the parents!

Parents

Parents are a welcome addition to our sport community! They are always encouraged to come to school matches and events; St. Edmund's supporters are famously friendly and sporting and they regularly seem to turn out in large numbers …. possibly because of our delicious match teas!

We have a dedicated website for our matches so parents will always know when, where and who your children are playing and how they got on! Our coaches and the staff in our Health Centre are also always on hand should you need advice or feedback.

Our younger pupils embark on their sporting journey with one hour of PE each week, along with a one hour swimming lesson. Pupils in Reception will have sports sessions focused on improving awareness of their bodies’ movement during activity. This helps them improve core skills such as running, agility, balance and hand eye co-ordination.

Form 1 and 2 pupils have a greater understanding of body control during exercise. In their one-hour games lesson, they will focus more on advanced core skills such as flexibility, explosive movements and SAQ (Speed Agility Quickness). As they progress, pupils will be expected to be comfortable with all different styles of equipment and be able to construct their own game / circuit. They continue their one-hour swimming lesson each week, looking at advancing their skills ready to compete in galas and divisional competition in the Lower Prep.

As the children move through the Lower Prep School, they increase their lessons to three one-hour training sessions and start participating in competitive fixtures with other schools every week on Thursday afternoons. These combined sessions culminate with each student receiving over five hours of sport built into their academic timetable each week. We follow a programme of study that allows pupils to undertake a mixture of sports and opportunities to play and train.

Our training sessions focus on improving fundamental core skills and tactics, allowing the students to learn through play and performance. This core programme the students pursue in their training and matches is as follows:

• Boys – Football/Rugby/Hockey/Cricket
• Girls – Netball/Hockey/Football/Cricket

Alongside this core programme pupils have the opportunity to participate in swimming, athletics, gymnastics, trampolining, basketball, judo, golf, tennis and mountain biking within their games lessons, as well as our extensive extra-curricular options. During these formative years, we believe that students should be given the opportunity to represent the school on a weekly basis, regardless of ability. This allows the students to experience all aspects of sporting life such as match tea’s and team bus journeys, as well as the comradery and team spirit that is gained from playing sport.