Congratulations to the Year 9 girls’ soccer and the U15 Girls Hockey team who recently won the Cannock and District Tournament.  The Year 7 girls continued the soccer success and not only won Cannock & District Tournament but went on and completed the double with success at the Staffordshire County Soccer Tournament. The girls went on and represented the County in the Midlands tournament and recently finished a fantastic 3^rd position in the whole of the West Midlands. The Year 10 Girls netball team also finished runners-up in the recent Cannock & District Netball Tournament.

Individual success has also been in abundance over the last couple of months. Kieran Bromley has been selected for the year 9 district soccer team. Morgan Harlow has qualified for the National Biathlon championship after finishing 4^th out of 33 competitors in the regional stages. Her sister Eden came 17^th out of 46 in her age group and has also been selected to represent Warwickshire in swimming.  Alice Arnstein also continues to represent the County at Badminton.  James Woolley has recently been selected to captain the Staffordshire County Athletics team.

Finally 20 Friary girls are also involved in the new dance program and are training ready to perform in the celebration day when the Olympic torch passes through the area. The girls are taking part in a community dance programme called Get Dancing as part of the Olympic initiative to increase involvement in dance in Staffordshire. The group are rehearsing every Monday at Lichfield Garrick Theatre with a dancer from Retina Dance group leading the sessions.

The football and rugby seasons have now drawn to a close. Congratulations to the Boys under 18 soccer team who have just be crowned County Champions. They defeated Codsall in the final 3-1 with goals from Seb Finkle (2) and Joe Bailey. Both the Y9 and Y10 boys’ soccer teams reached the Cannock and District final. The year 9 team lost 4-2 with Friary goals coming from Will Cliff and Sam Fenlon and the Y10 team lost 4-0.

Congratulations also go to the 1^st team and Y11 rugby teams who recently won the Cannock and District 7 a-side tournament. The Year 8 team will compete in the tournament this term. Five year 7 pupils have also just won the Under 12 County Cup with Lichfield Rugby Club

Morgan Harlow finished a fantastic 9^th position in the National Biathlon Championships which was held last month at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.  Her overall point’s score of 2328 was helped by smashing her personal best time for the 1000 metre by over 13 seconds

Izzy Clarke will be representing the West Midlands in the UK School games in Cycling and will race on the new Olympic Velodrome and will also stay in the new Olympic Village. To get to the UK games Izzy came 1^st in the icebreaker series which was held in the Newport Velodrome- Good luck from everyone at the Friary School.

Finally a massive thank you goes out to Mr Van Block who once again organised a fantastic ski trip to Lake Tahoe in California. The group enjoyed fantastic weather, ski conditions and amazing views of a beautiful part of America. The 36 Friary pupils were a real credit to the school and should be extremely proud of their progress and superb behaviour and attitude on the trip. If you are interested in next year’s ski trip to New York please see Mr Van Block or anyone in the PE department for further details.

Friary School Boys Success – 2011-2012 – The story so far:

The rugby season is now drawing to a close and the Friary School have enjoyed another successful season.  In particular the U13 team have won the vast amount of their games and only narrowly lost to Chase Terrace in the Quarter-Finals of the County Cup. All teams are entered next week in the Cannock and District 7 A-Side competition. Individually James Woolley attends Staffordshire School of rugby at under 13 level.  Rory Davies and Jack Bayliss have also received County honours at Under 16.

The Friary School boys have also had great individual success in hockey with a number of pupils selected for County/National honours. Jake Hincks has represented the County at under 13 level and Adam Geldard-Williams and Ed Jacob have represented the County at Under 15. Ed has also been selected for the England Lions team whilst Robbie Gleeson has played for the England under 18 team against Wales. The Under 14 team won their first competitive match against Erasmus Darwin 4-0 on Tuesday.

We have also had a fantastic year of sporting success in football with all teams still involved in the Cannock and District Cup. The Under 18 team have reached the County Cup Final which will be played on the 26^th March at Eccleshall Football Club against Codsall School. All support will be very welcome. In the year 7 team Tai-Reece Chisholm is currently in the Aston Villa Academy. Joe Templeton in year 8 is currently playing for Chasetown Academy, whilst Robert Miles in year 9 is in the Burton Albion Academy.  In the year 9 team Jacob Pidd, Robert Miles and Kieran Bromley have all been selected for the district team. Jacob Pidd, Bailey Heanen, Kieran Bromley and Jake Sheerin have also been invited to the County trials which will take place in the next few weeks. Joel Harrison, Jake Roberts and Sam Addis have also represented the district team at Under 15 level. Finally Kelvin Douglas in year 10 continues to excel in Football and is currently playing for Stoke City. 

James Woolley in year 8 continues to break a number of schools records in Athletics and captained the Birmingham District in a sports hall athletics tournament. James also represents Staffordshire in Athletics where he runs the 60 meters and is also in the 4x200 metre relay team.

We are already looking forward to the new cricket season which starts after Easter. All year groups have been entered in the Cannock and District Leagues and the County Cup Competitions. The annual first team game against the MCC has been arranged for Thursday July 5^th and will be held at Lichfield Cricket Club. Three Friary boys have already been selected for the District team with Joe Templeton playing for the Under 13 team and Cameron Macrae and Adam Geldard-Williams selected for the Under 15 team.

Finally congratulations go to Calum Lawrence who continues to excel in Tae Kwon Do. He recently took part in the South Midlands tournament and achieved two 3^rd place finishes. He will be competing in the National Tae Kwon Do Championships held this Sunday. Good luck to Calum and all other Friary pupils over the next several months in an extensive amount of sport being played.

Easter:

Emma and Calum Lawrence have continued to excel in Tae Kwon Do with the brother and sister act winning a number of medals in the recent Welsh Open Championships. Emma achieved gold success in the sparring and patterns individual events and also won a silver medal in the team sparring competition. Calum kept the family domination going by also winning gold in the individual sparring competition.

There has been some fantastic achievement by our Friary athletes during the season. The school have had some brilliant results in the Cannock and District leagues with a number of our athletes achieving personal bests. Good luck to Cydnee Glenn, James Woolley, Millie Elson and Harry Marshall who have been selected to represent the county @The Mason Trophy at the weekend. The year 7 and 8 Athletic teams have also been very successful and Josh Howship, James Cox, James Woolley, Jake Hincks, Sam Cowell, James Wilson, Adam Collins, Lauren Butler, Charlotte Barnard and Dani Oxley have all been selected to represent the district @Tamworth.

Two Friary students were selected to compete in the youth games. In Cycling, Izzy Clarke has now competed in the new Olympic Velodrome. The year 10 pupil is going down to St Joseph and St Theresa Primary School in Burntwood to give a presentation and demonstration on her experiences of cycling at the youth games as part of the primary school Olympic theme days. Robbie Gleeson was also selected to play hockey at the Olympic Park

In biathlon our very own Friary schools superstar Morgan Harlow presented the medals at the Cathedral school biathlon championship which was held at the Friary school with sixth form helpers Laura Eggington, Ed Beard, Dale Potter, Ellie Black and Ben Brookes doing a fantastic job of helping run the event.

The school should also be incredibly proud of all out great sports leaders who have been great ambassadors when helping to lead sports sessions and tournaments at our local primary schools. The year 7, 8, 9 and Y10 BTEC Sport groups have worked with pupils from Christ Church, St Peters and St Pauls, Chadsmead and St James.

The girls rounder’s team are well under way in there fixtures in the Cannock and District league and Y7, 8 and 9 all defeated Erasmus Darwin School on Wednesday.

In girls soccer Millie Elson continues to excel and has recently been selected for England training camp. Throughout the year we continue to watch the progress of Beth Merrick who has represented England on a number of occasions and has recently signed for Aston Villa ladies. The year 7 girls’ soccer team have progressed to the National Final of the Futsal tournament and our one of only 10 teams left in the competition

In other girls news Jo Bates has also been selected for the Midlands netball team and Ellie Wayne has been called up to the under 13 JDC Hockey training.

The Friary Cricket teams seem to go from strength to strength.  Many congratulations to the year 10 team who have been the first Friary team in a number of years to reach the County cup final. On the path to the final they managed to beat Wolverhampton Grammar School before losing to Denstone in the final. We are also well into the Cricket season and all our age groups are still undefeated in the Cannock and District leagues. There have also been great individual successes with James Geldard-Williams, Adam Geldard-Williams and Sam Bannister all scoring fifty for the school team. Sam’s younger brother Jon also hit 30 runs in a year 7 game before retiring.  Ed Jacob also smashed an amazing 28 runs off only 6 deliveries.  We are also looking forward to the school’s annual match against the MCC which will take place on Thursday 5^th July at Lichfield Cricket Club. We hope we get a number of supporters down to cheer on out first XI Cricket team. Good luck to all the Friary athletes for the remainder of the season and we look forward to updating our achievement board with all the great successes.

Finally as the countdown draws to a close a massive good luck goes out to Tom Bolton. We hope you have fantastic day and enjoy every minute while you carry the Olympic torch. We look forward to cheering you on and taking plenty of photos of you in your once in a lifetime opportunity.  For any Friary students who want to cheer Tom on he will be carrying the torch in Newtown, near Cannock at 11.52 on Saturday 30^th June. Friary pupils will also be representing the school in Beacon Park competing in basketball, golf and tennis. The dance group will be performing in the Market Square after 5 months of rehearsals.