Winning 6 of the team events alongside 4 individual medals for solo runners too making them the most successful school at the competition from across the entire county.
On a cold and windy February morning, around one thousand pupils descended upon Temple Newsam for this annual race. All runners competing had qualified as either a school team or wildcard runner following regional heats, with 736 schools across the county feeding into this final race. Schools from all districts in West Yorkshire- including Bradford, Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield, took on the challenging course.
All pupils ran with pride and passion under sometimes gruelling conditions. However, the Baildon C of E Primary School teams demonstrated incredible character with their Year 3 Boys, Year 4 Girls, Year 5 Girls, Year 5 Boys and Year 6 girls all crowned county champions whilst their Year 6 Boys’ team came 3rd. Team results were calculated by adding together the finishing positions of the first four finishers with the lowest total winning.
Baildon’s success was supported by some incredible individual runners too, with their pupils winning 4 solo medals including one gold, two silvers and a bronze and 7 pupils qualifying to represent the county at the national finals.
Mr Van der Gucht, the team coach, said,
“It was an incredible and proud moment and reflects all the children and staff’s effort in practices and PE lessons. When they were announcing the results and our name kept coming up, I started feeling a little dizzy with disbelief. Even the organisers said they had never seen a school do so well.”
The school believes their success was down to the inclusiveness of their cross country club which is open to all pupils. Over 120 pupils took the opportunity to represent the school in local races and over 80% of pupils in KS2 have attended their lunchtime running club, enjoying fun activities like obstacle courses and beat-the-teacher races to help engage them to exercise.
To further encourage pupils to get active, a team at the Saltaire Parkrun has been created and currently has 74 participants and has completed over 1500 runs.