We are extremely fortunate, in the centre of London, to have a great deal of outdoor space for sport: in addition to our playing fields at Vincent Square, there are several fives courts on our main site. We also have a wonderful Sports Centre that offers over 6,000m² of indoor space, housing a multi-use movement studio, a rowing training suite, fencing pistes, indoor cricket nets, a fully equipped gym, two climbing walls, a dojo and a table tennis area and courts for basketball, netball, five-a-side football, volleyball, hockey and badminton. In addition, there’s the School’s shooting gallery, and our Boat Club at Putney too.
Our pupils benefit from the involvement of professional coaches, several of whom have represented their countries in international matches and competitions, including the Olympic Games. This is an enormous asset to us, particularly when it comes to preparing our pupils to represent the school in local, national and international events. Competing has led our footballers to France, our cricketers to Barbados and our rowers across the globe, often to great success.
Recent sporting triumphs include: our cross country team taking the Senior Girls Team title in the 2024 London Schools’ Championships; our U15 tennis players becoming ISTA Thomas Bowl Shield Winners 2024; our cricketers winning the London Schools’ U19 Cup in 2024, 2022 and 2021, and also the U15 T20 Cup in 2022; and our Judo team taking home two Silvers and five Bronze, and the Small Team Trophy, after a highly successful run at the 2024 HMC Independent Schools’ Championships. Spectacularly, on national and international levels: one of our rowers won Gold and two won Silver respectively, in 2024 and 2022, as part of the Great Britain Eights Crew in the World Junior Championships; one of our fencers secured an Individual Gold in the U20 Women’s Epee and another an Individual Bronze in the U17 Men’s Epee at the 2024 British Cadet and Junior National Championships; and in 2022 a Westminster fencer secured an assortment of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals at the European Junior Championships, the British Senior Championships and the Commonwealth Championships.
In addition to the health and wellbeing benefits of regular exercise and the enjoyment our pupils find in playing sport, we also know that our Station programme is giving pupils the opportunity to gain important life skills. Qualities such as time-management, determination, commitment and initiative can be developed through competing against other individuals and teams, in addition to learning how to be both gracious winners and good losers.
Mr James Kershen, Director of Sport
james.kershen@westminster.org.uk
