We believe that engagement in both sporting competition (both team and individual) and in The Arts is essential for every child at Upham School. These areas offer more that National Curriculum learning; they encourage discipline, self control, resilience, persistence, health and fitness, practice and build self esteem and confidence, as well as fulfilling a human need to be creative and active. We aim to provide the highest quality education, we are one of only a few schools in the area to have been awarded a platinum ‘School Games’ Award in 2022 which is awarded for two years (2021/22 and 2022/23). We are proud to have retained this having first been awarded in 2018. We hope this area of our website helps you find out about how we encourage participation by all in Sport and physical activity.

Teaching & Learning in Games

Throughout the school, children are encouraged to participate in competition with their peers in Games lessons. We utilise specialist coaches, such as Class 4 learning to play squash with coaches from Trojans Squash Club.

Sport Through Play

Children love using ‘Huff and Puff’ playtime equipment at playtime and are often found playing their own hockey, basketball, tennis, cricket and football matches. We also have other equipment available, such as competitive Frisbee and skipping, for those children who are not particularly fond of traditional team sports. We also have a den-building area to promote active, physical cooperative play. Our older children can often be found helping younger ones to play games, having organised small competitions themselves.

Sports Ambassadors

Some of our older children fulfil the role of sports ambassadors and are great role models to everyone else. They stand for fair play, enjoyment and ‘having a go’ and help organise clubs and sports day. Mrs Sothcott leads the team of sports ambassadors but it is a shared dedication to developing sport across our staff team which has created much of our success.

After School Sports Clubs

We offer a wide range of after school clubs to encourage sport for such a small school. All are well attended by both girls and boys. This year we were able to extended our range of clubs and were able to offer: Netball, Running, Street Dance, Football, Basketball, Tag-Rugby, Hockey, Country Dancing, Cricket, Handball, Tennis & Rounders to KS2 children and Yoga, Street Dance, Multi-skills, Cricket and Country Dancing to KS1.

Inter-School Competition

We enter as many competitions as we can to give as many children as possible opportunities to experience competition. As a small school we generally chose teams by asking for volunteers; we include all. We pride ourselves on ‘punching above our weight’, regularly beating teams selected from huge local schools. Sometimes, our small numbers can be rather overwhelmed and we also arrange sporting fixtures with small school colleagues so the children experience competition at similar levels.

Role of Recent Sporting Achievements

Children from across the school take part in a huge number of competitions during the school year. We are very proud of how highly and consistently they performed across a wide range of sports. Some recent achievements from 2022 (and before) include:

• Hampshire School Games County Finalists - 2022 participants Years 4-6, 2019 Year 3/4 multi-sports Finished 2nd with Silver Medals in 2018 
• Hampshire Small Schools ESFA Football County Finals Year 5/6 - 6th in 2019, 3rd in 2018 and 3rd in 2017
• Table Tennis Year 5/6 Area  County finalist in 2018
• Basketball Year 5/6 Area
• Hockey Year 5/6 Area - 2nd out of 10 teams
• Tri-golf Year 3/4 Area 
• Athletics Year 5/6 - Individual 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes in events
• Football Year 3/4 Cluster - 4th
• Tennis Year 5/6 Cluster Girls 3rd, Boys 4th and Year 3/4 Cluster - 2nd
• Cricket Year 5/6 Area - 2nd in Pool and Year 3/4 2nd in Pool
• Swimming Years 3-6 Area, Years 4-6 County - Individual 2nd and 4th

Though we have participated in almost every other competition available:

Hockey Year 2 Area,

Swimming Galas Year 5/6 and Year 3/4

Cross Country Years 3,4,5 & 6 Area 

Tag Rugby Year 5/6 Area

Football Year 2, Years 3/4 (separate girls and boys tournaments) and Years 5/6 (separate girls and boys)

Tennis Year 2 Cluster

Indoor Athletics - Year 3 and Year 5/6

Dodgeball Year 5/6

Netball Year 5/6

Cricket Years 3/4 (separate girls and boys tournaments) and Years 5/6 (separate girls and boys)

Basketball Year 5/6

Tennis Year 2, Year 3/4

Netball Year 5/6

Please note that all teams were mixed boys & girls unless separate tournaments for both genders were entered.