Success comes in numerous ways.  I hope that Joe doesn’t mind me saying that his writing isn’t his greatest strength; that he doesn’t enjoy classroom work; that studying languages in particular is a real challenge.  However, what I saw on the five weeks of training to run a Power House Games, was a different student entirely.  His ability to grasp the practicalities of inclusive and adapted sports, his enthusiasm for setting the equipment up and explaining it to his peers, and his empathy for alternative learning styles, was little short of extraordinary.  Joe graduated in our first course of Leadership Training as the first ever “P2I Young Leader”: a great success!

The course ran for five consecutive weeks in the last lessons of a Tuesday at King’s Ely Junior School. Each week we had 10 students from Year 8 come and try out a different pair of inclusive and adapted sports. Joe, Jack, Krish and Cyrus – though it was Joe who helped every week – came in rotation the lesson before and learnt the games themselves and then had to teach it themselves to the 10 students. Learning to teach is an invaluable skill, and requires totally different tools than those we typically acquire in a classroom setting.

The sports are new to most: sitting volleyball and visually impaired football; boccia and floor lacrosse; new age kurling and target games; kwik cricket goalball; and zonal wheelchair basketball for a whole session to finish.

Visually impaired football requires becoming familiar with being blindfolded and guiding a blindfolded partner and for our leaders, then working out how to train their peers in a short time how to do this.  It requires empathy; anticipation – is that guide going to allow a partner to walk into an obstacle?; and tact, as some find it much harder than others.  But the students love it and they learn trust and communication in bucket-loads.

Joe was a star at boccia, happy to flex the available space, a sloping area on play-area-fake-bark, to make the games inclusive and fun, and constantly reminding his peers why they were learning this game: it is the most inclusive game there is, played to the most phenomenal standard imaginable by people with profound impairments at the Paralympics.

We finished with wheelchair basketball, in a zonal configuration. This is one of the most popular amongst non-disabled athletes: all the participants wanted to be in the four chairs rather than running around in the centre of the court!  As we had only four chairs (all that I could fit in my car!) we had two play two at either end of a shortened court, so one defender and one attacker in a chair in each team.  The others played non-disabled basketball, but were denied access to the “shooting zones”.  Even Mr Andrew Marshall, King’s Ely Junior’s First Deputy Head, joined in – it was such fun!

If you wish to have such training at your school, please get in touch – click here to contact us.

The Cambridge University Sports Centre played host to our second university-style Power House Games on 15 March.

Mills & Reeve provided the sponsorship and volunteers who captained the 12 teams all in different colours.  These captains were joined by two blues’ squads cricketers, one from the Women’s team and one from the Men’s; and students from the Perse, Comberton Village College and Castle Special School, making an extremely diverse team of 6 – true inclusion!

The teams played inclusive and adapted sports boccia, goalball, basketball, walking football and to meet the cricket theme: table cricket and kwik cricket.

Cricketer Holly Tasker explained, “It has been a real eye-opener to see how the community can come together and to see how people with such a variety of disabilities can live their lives. It was the sort of event that restores my faith in humanity.  It is great to see how we can adapt the sports to make them inclusive for everyone. It has been an awesome experience – super inspiring.”

These events – this cricket one follows a Rugby Club one last autumn, and others are planned – are perfect examples of what we are about: Inclusion.  Not only are we breaking down barriers between able-bodied and disabled players, but also between men and women, across the ages and between different types of school.

Nick Brooking, the University’s Director of Sport, emphasised the value of learning these softer skills: “They form an integral part of our goal of greater promotion of the wider, positive aspects of recreational activity for health, educational and social benefits.”

Kevin Martin, PE teacher at Castle Special School, said: “A great day. Our kids loved it!”

Sam Ash Croft, trainee solicitor, added: “It was tremendous fun to be a part of and gave me (and many others from Mills & Reeve) a genuinely moving experience of community, for which I am very grateful.”

So far 150 people have taken part in these “Power House Games”.  With plans for the football, rowing and golf clubs to join the programme, the university is introducing the community to the Sports Centre and current students to the community and inspiring local youngsters to dream big.