We had our first overseas trip in recent years when our Under 13 sports teams attended the British School BSME Games in Dubai. These trips are transformational experiences, and our students thoroughly enjoyed every part of it, with notable performances in football and athletics. We were the only Qatar school represented, with other BSME schools from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in attendance. At Park House, we are very keen to continue to offer these opportunities to our students and put our school firmly on the regional map. To read more about our students in the news, please click here.
Our Assistant Head of Secondary: Key Stage 3, Mr Michael MacDonald, accompanied our sports teams and shared the following details.
“Our Under 13 Park House team travelled to Dubai to compete in the BSME games at Deira International School. They were joined by 19 other BSME member schools from across the Middle East.
Day 1
Spirits were high and the students and staff were very excited about their first-ever appearance at the U13 games. It started off with volleyball for the boys and football for the girls. The boys played against the hosts Deira, The British School of Kuwait, British School of Bahrain and Cranleigh. We progressed through the group winning all five matches and then played against The British School of Riyadh for a place in the last four. After a hard-fought match, BISR beat Park House 25-18 and the boys had to navigate their way through the 5th – 8th place matches eventually finishing 7th. Some special mentions to Joel, Kayde and Fausto for their performances.
The girls were drawn into one of the toughest groups of the day for football, as they competed against Dubai British School – Jumeirah Park, British School Bahrain, British International School Jeddah, and Al Yasmina Academy. The girls battled bravely in their matches with two draws and two losses, which were both closely contested and the final score of each match was 1-0. It was an extremely competitive tournament, and the girls went through to the 17th-20th places. Our girls then won all three of their mini-pool matches to finish 17th, with some fantastic performances from Fatima, Rosie and Raluca.
Day 2
After a positive first day, we travelled to the athletics portion of the BSME Games with high hopes. There were some incredible performances throughout the day with Zyad coming second in both the 100m & 200m heats, Lucas coming second in his 100m heat and Charlie third in his 400m heat. On the field, we achieved a gold medal in the javelin event, where Ivo threw over 25m, Lucas finished 5th out of 40 in the triple jump, Kayde finished 4th out of 40 in the long jump and Jack finished in the top ten for both shot put and javelin. Our boys won both their heats comfortably in the relay, however, our A team were subsequently disqualified for stepping out of the changeover box meaning we lost out on valuable points overall.
The girls performed extremely well throughout the day with Alexandra winning the high jump by 15cm and securing a gold medal! She followed this up with another gold in the 100m! Raluca won silver in the triple jump and comfortably won her 400m heat, finishing 4th out of 40, after all the times were logged. The girls then won both their heats in the 4x100m relay by a considerable margin but both were just outside the time required for the final. Alexandra achieved the award for female athlete of the day for her outstanding performances in the track and field events.
Day 3
The final day saw our girls on the netball court and our boys on the football field. Once again, the girls were drawn into the toughest pool facing St Christophers of Bahrain, British International School Riyadh, British International School Jeddah, and Brighton College Abu Dhabi. The girls battled hard throughout the group but eventually had to settle for a place in the 16th – 20th mini-league. As always, our girls showed an outstanding level of resilience and won their final three games and finished 16th overall. There were some outstanding performances from Andrea, Bea and Imogen.
The boys were grouped against The English School of Kuwait, The Kuwait English School, Kings School Al Barsha and Cranleigh. Park House topped the group and went through to the quarter-finals, beating the eventual overall winners of the BSME Games, British School Al Khubairat. The boys then faced a tough game against British School Bahrain but were committed in their performance, winning 3-0. They went on to face Al Yasmina Academy in the final. After a tight match, it went to penalties with the Abu Dhabi school coming out on top in sudden death 8-7. There were some outstanding performances from Zyad, Fausto and Charlie.
Park House finished a very creditable 11th place with the relay bonus points ultimately dropping us out of the top 7. However, we punched well above our weight and more than matched schools three times our size. It really was an amazing achievement. Our students were the best possible ambassadors for the school, and we could not be prouder of their efforts. We look forward to the next time when we will be even better!”
