We are back! Autumn term begins with some Hockey

It was great to see a lot of familiar faces back for the start of the Autumn term all refreshed and raring to go.
After some initial catch ups and finding out what each other got up to over the summer holidays it was straight back in to the action. As usual that meant a warm up led by Ray with help from Ciara and Ollie.

Someone is excited to be back!

The main sport this week was Hockey and as you can see in the photos above and below that meant starting with some stick work and controlling the ball around the cones laid out up and down the hall. That led to a few one-on-one races up and down the course.
From there we moved on to bench hockey where the group split in to two teams and each team sits behind a bench with their sticks poking through the gaps, facing the other team. Each team is aiming to get the ball in to the goal at the end to their right. So in effect the teams are going in opposite directions much like a normal hockey match. It is all about team work, getting the ball from the person defending the team goal along the row to the attacker who can shoot.

After a refreshment break we completed the Hockey with a "normal" match. The teams used the whole hall and the benches became the goals at either end. They put all the skills they had practised to good use and along with some teamwork it made for an energetic match.
The session ended with a game of Benchball, using the benches once more. The game starts with one member of each  team standing on the far bench. The rest then have to pass the ball up the pitch and after at least three passes, without the ball hitting the floor, they can try and pass to the team member on the bench. If it is caught then the person throwing the ball joins them on the bench. If not, then play passes over to the other team. The team who gets all their players on the bench first is the winner. 

At the end of a great session the judges conferred and were delighted to award the Star of the Week award to Alexander. Alexander normally has to leave half way through the session to go Horse riding so it was great that he could stay until the end and he made it count with a star performance throughout!

Join us again next week to see what Alan and the team have in store. Also, please pass the word on to anyone you may know who would benefit from the activities we run and invite them to come along and try for themselves.

Our Star this week was Alexander, pictured here with coach Ray and Anand