Physical Education and Games

We are proud of our sporting tradition at St. Edmund's, and our sporting fixture list is demanding and extensive. On-site facilities include a sports hall, squash courts, an outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, netball courts, a short golf course and extensive playing fields. Our pupils also have access to the sporting facilities at the University of Kent, whose campus adjoins our own, and our hockey and football teams train on their newly built Astroturf and 3G football surface.

We see four key benefits of sport in education: the challenge of competition, and the mastering of physical skills; the development of physical wellbeing; the development of qualities of self-reliance and teamwork; and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle as a natural and desirable condition. All pupils participate in sporting activities throughout their time at St. Edmund's, and we have a wide range of sports to offer. Our main sports are football, hockey, netball, tennis and cricket. Other activities include athletics, badminton, basketball, dance, fencing, golf, health and fitness, ice-skating, martial arts, rock climbing, rounders, swimming, softball, squash, trampolining, triathlon and volleyball.

Physical Education is also offered as an academic discipline at St, Edmund's, at GCSE and A Level, and this has is popular with our pupils; GCSE is usually offered as an additional option, at the invitation of the department, and on the basis of a pupil's physical skills and commitment to sport. The theoretical components of these courses teach our pupils about factors affecting participation and performance, safety aspects and risk assessment, and applied anatomy and physiology, as well as historical sports studies and sports psychology.

We achieve sporting excellence at St. Edmund's at the highest level, and have had many successful sporting tours in recent years, in the UK and also overseas. These include hockey and netball tours to Barbados, football and hockey tours to Spain, Gibraltar, France and Holland, and tennis tours to Spain and Portugal.

We also have important community links with local clubs and in the summer term run SummerFest which is open to our own pupils and to children in the local community, offering a wide range of specialist sports coaching.