As Wellington’s third academic year draws to a close, director of sport Mr Starbrook explains how far the College has come in terms of building on previous years’ foundations and securing new sporting experiences and opportunities for its pupils. As we look forward to the summer holidays, we can also look back with pride on the 2016-2017 school year, which has seen Wellington develop a much greater sporting presence, both in Shanghai and across Asia’s international school community.
“As Wellington grows we are moving confidently into a much wider and more prestigious range of local, national and even international sporting competitions and tournaments and offering a greater variety of sports trips too. As such, our pupils are competing with other athletes their age who attend schools across Shanghai and China, not to mention other South East Asian and Middle Eastern countries, as well as the UK.” – Nick Starbrook
Mr Starbrook highlighted that the core Wellington sports of football, netball, rugby and swimming now all have yearly international trips and tournaments. This is without mentioning the annual scuba diving trip to the Philippines, an excursion which is representative of Wellington’s commitment to diversifying the range of sporting activities and disciplines for pupils to explore.
One of the most notable successes of the year was the rugby, netball and tennis sports tournament in Beijing, which saw 52 Wellington pupils from the U11 boys rugby and girls netball teams, U13 boys rugby and girls netball teams and 10 tennis players from various year groups all heading to the capital for an incredible sports gathering. Competing against school teams drawn from China, South Korea, Singapore and Dubai, Wellington managed to secure some impressive rankings; the U11 girls came third, and the U11 boys and U13 girls came fourth in their respective disciplines.
“The Beijing Tour was a great experience as we grew together a team and made lots of new friendships. One great highlight was using our skill and teamwork to beat several teams who had much bigger pupils who towered over our tallest players. This trip resulted in plenty of amazing memories as well as lots of valuable learning experiences to take back to Wellington.” – Tommaso (year 8)
In January 2017, Wellington also took a rugby and hockey team to the UK to compete against some of the best prep schools in the country, including our sister school: Eagle House. This ten-day tour took in the sites of London as well as fixtures against New Hall, Felsted and Clifton College.
In November 2016, Wellington entered the Phuket 7-a-side football tournament for the first time amongst 36 international school teams drawn from all across South East Asia. The U11 boys even got to the plate final, narrowly losing to UWC: a fantastic result given that the school has about 3000 pupils from which to draw its players. Next year, four teams (two boys and two girls) will be heading back to Phuket for this tournament, doubling Wellington’s presence there.
“The conditions in Phuket were very hot and the tournament drew lots of very good schools from around South-East Asia, which made for some really tough matches. It was great staying in the hotel with my friends and we had a lot of fun being away together. One of my favourite highlights was Hugo passing to Adam who headed the ball past the goalkeeper to win our quarter-final 1-0. We lost to UWC in the plate final but it was a great achievement for our team in the first tournament and we are very much looking forward to going back next year!” – Max (year 7)
- Making a splash internationally
The College also became involved in three separate swimming competitions this year, with teams visiting SAS (Singapore American School) where Wellington gained three age group winners as well as Brunei for the FOBISIA (Federation of British International Schools in Asia) championships where Wellington finished 5
th out of 32 participating schools. Teams also visited Hong Kong to compete in the Mantas Swim Championships, which brings together the best club and school teams in the region.
“The Hong Kong Mantas Swim Meet offered our swimmers a fantastic opportunity to compete with some of the best swimmers in Asia in such a prestigious venue. All our swimmers demonstrated their determination and courage with achievements of many personal bests, all made possible by their hard work throughout the year. It was also great to witness the Wellington team spirit by cheering on our team mates, helping each other and encouraging the growing independence of the younger ones who were away from their parents for an international competition for the first time ever.” – Aimee (year 9)
- The future of sport at Wellington
Not content with this excellent showing, it seems that the sports department have even greater ambitions for next year, when Wellington will become a full member of the ACAMIS (Association of Chinese and Mongolian International Schools) senior sporting competition for the core sports football, volleyball and basketball, as well as athletics and swimming. The aim is to expand the size of Wellington’s senior teams so that two or even three teams will be able to attend two-day ACAMIS tournaments. The year after next will see the College gain its FOBISIA membership, which will allow football, basketball, athletics and swimming teams from years 5-6, years 7-8 and years 9-10 to journey all over Asia at different times of the year to participate in various tournaments against other FOBISIA member schools.
Mr Starbrook explained that the inherent value of enabling Wellingtonians to participate in a range of internationally recognised and supported sports competitions is twofold: such experiences directly improve their physical, sports-based abilities, while at the same time honing many of the character traits necessary to become a wholly-developed athlete:
“These tournaments and sporting trips expose our pupils to the different levels of sporting ability that are out there in the wider world beyond the school and Shanghai. International schools vary greatly in size and for the larger schools there will be a much larger talent pool to draw from. Therefore, when our teams encounter the likes of Tanglin Trust School in Singapore – which has around 2500 pupils – they are given the opportunity to compete against teams of a very high standard, which is very exciting and drives our pupils to excel as they learn from this invaluable experience.
They return to Wellington motivated, inspired to apply what they have seen, and eager to come back the following year and perform even better.”
“Not only do these events give our pupils the opportunity to experience their chosen sports in new and exciting surroundings, they also get to meet athletes from other schools and hopefully strike up lasting friendships with them. We feel that this helps pupils of all ages develop a greater sense of sportsmanship and respect as they interact with school children drawn from all across the region. Through these international meetings, Wellington will continue to help strengthen the ties between the international schooling community through sport.”
As everyone at Wellington prepares for the well-deserved break, we can rest assured that the next academic year will be full of even greater opportunities for pupils to enjoy the sports that they love to fullest. With a wider range of demanding tournaments and exciting trips to be enjoyed across Asia and further afield, sport at
Wellington continues to go from strength to strength.
