Baildon Church of England Primary School enjoyed a sensational set of results at the West Yorkshire Schools Cross Country finals with their squad winning 5 medals in the team events and 5 individual medals for solo runners too making them the most successful school at the competition from across the entire county.
Baildon C of E Primary School is located on Coverdale Way and is part of the successful Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust which leads a family of thirteen primaries and four secondaries and one all through school across the region to deliver high quality education within the context of Christian belief and practice.
The event, held at Temple Newsam, was the culmination of the school cross country season and all squads competing had earned their place having firstly qualified through their local leagues before being one of the top 5 teams at their regional finals. Schools from all districts in West Yorkshire- including Bradford, Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield, took on the challenging course over rough and hilly ground.
The event was split into age-group categories with separate boys and girls events for each year group. Baildon had qualified seven teams out of the eight possible events. Their Year 3 girls, Year 4 boys and Year 5 girls were all crowned champions whilst their Year 4 girls finished 2nd and the Year 5 boys finished 3rd. No other school from across West Yorkshire achieved such success! The team events were based upon your first four runners with the total of their finishing positions added together and compared- the lowest scores winning.
Baildon’s success was supported by some incredible individual runners too, with their Year three girls finishing 1st and 2nd, their Year 4 boys 1st and 4th and Year 5 girls 2nd and 3rd.
This was mirrored at the national finals where 8 pupils were selected to represent West Yorkshire. With again impressive results including 4 top ten finishes.
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 over 71 participants and has completed over 1300 runs.