Message from the Director of Sport

I decided to go to Zayed Cricket Stadium to see if my legs still work and to cut a long story short…they don’t. That is what watching sport does to you; it makes you want to emulate heroes, score the winning goal, lift the trophy, or just try your luck at Zayed Cricket Stadium. This term gives our students a whole range of opportunities to do so. When walking into school on Monday it was amazing listening to students discussing our new field and asking when they can play on it.

School Sport starts straight away; we were very excited for the Duathlon to return on Thursday for Primary and Secondary students after the success of the Triathlon last term. These events are fantastic, a unique demonstration of determination, resilience, and accomplishment. Traits that the PE teachers see daily from our students.

This term sees our school participating in six BSME games, hosting an U11 Large School Games and BSME Swimming Championships. Taking part in the ADEK Football Cup, BSAK 7’s Football Tournament, NBA Basketball Junior Championships, U11 ADISSA games. In addition, we are participating in our regular ADISSA fixtures in swimming, Primary girls netball, Primary boys football, Secondary girls football, Secondary boys rugby and Primary cricket.

Term two also sees the start of our partnership with Infinite; the management company that will help the school build an after-school sports programme for the whole community. Over the next year we will be looking at developing this partnership, working alongside outside providers to develop our schools’ sports CCA offer.  

This weekend we are privileged to host the ADISSA staff ‘Teach Meet’. We have invited approximately forty members of PE staff across Abu Dhabi schools to participate in this professional learning opportunity, which aims to establish an effective network of teachers to assist in developing PE within the emirate.

Recent worldwide research highlights that female disengagement in school sport is a huge issue.  With more girls dropping out of sport we need new initiatives to retain and engage girls in sport to promote lifelong participation. BIS Abu Dhabi PE department understands the many barriers to participation that girls may face; our aim is to for every girl to take part in regular physical activity. To support this, we are initially going to introduce:

• Get Caught Playing Sport – an initiative to build up the visual representation of girls in sport around our school.
• Girls Sports Space – an initiative to designate ‘girls only’ areas for planned sporting participation.
• Mother and Daughter sessions – Monthly sporting opportunities for mothers and daughters to take part in exercise and workshops together.

Throughout this busy period, we hope that our students can inspire others to try a new sport, go outside and play, or even get some of our parents involved!

BIS Abu Dhabi PE department will be sharing the competition and tournament dates soon; we would love to see all our community supporting our students at these different events.

Ryan Baker 
Director of Sport