Greetings from St Bede’s.

In response to the Government announcement advising the move back to COVID-19 Alert Level 2, we met with students on Wednesday and advised the following:

• Schools are open for all students to attend and it is safe to do so.
• We appreciate the change in status can bring about anxiety and worry and have identified support networks in place for our students.
• We cannot be complacent, each of us needs to play our part.
• Wednesday Sport is cancelled, however practice for sport and culture can go ahead.
• The Subject Choice & Careers' Evening and the Feast of Assumption Mass were both cancelled due to these events being open to the wider community.

Reminder of Level 2 requirements:

• Practice good hygiene – regular washing and drying of hands, good cough and sneeze etiquette, sanitising regularly, washing down desks at the end of each day, not sharing water bottles, food or devices.
• Stay home if you are unwell.
• Maintain physical distancing where practicable – in schools this means maintaining a distance so we are not breathing on or touching each other.
• Keep track of people that enter and move about our school – taking class rolls, it is important you sign in and out.

We were able to stage the Summer Sports' Awards Assembly on Wednesday. The Summer Sports' programme was was curtailed because of C-19 – most sports got just over a month of competition, but the Summer Sports’ Tournament was cancelled, so many missed out on what was to be the climax of their summer programme, which was a pity.

Last week I made a few comments about the place of culture in our lives. At the assembly on Wednesday I thought I would do the same about sport...

"We aim to provide sports opportunities to people of all abilities just as we do for cultural activities – in other words, provide a pathway. Not only a pathway for the talented, but also a pathway or to introduce how sport can be a part of a balanced life here at school, a way to stay healthy, make friends and be a part of the wider community.

I thoroughly enjoy walking out the gate from home, particularly over the winter and watching boys of all abilities and age play and enjoy their sport. Common to all games is not only the enjoyment of winning, but the learnings of being beaten – how to win and how to lose are two great lessons in life because they not only relate to sport; they relate to all aspects of life, whether you are applying for a job, or a leader role, or whatever, learning to win and learning to lose is something sport can teach you.

Teamwork is another lesson sport can give you – no member of any sports team has a good day all the time, and learning to enjoy each other’s success within your team is another lesson that being part of a sports team teaches you. The ability of individuals in the team deal with losing is another transferrable life skill that sport offers as well. At some stage we get disappointed or lose in life too – learning to deal with it is a skill.

Those who walk the stage today may be blessed with greater natural talents and that may be the reason why they get the award this morning. Some may also have performed because they had the gift of recognizing or realising that to work hard also brings consistent performance. I call that a gift as well quite deliberately. For years I have seen very talented school-aged students, who have not got the other gift – the gift of hard work and desire to go the extra mile.

More and more young people I talk to have in the back of their mind, the prospect of playing professional sport, which is great. They may have an innate talent that they see and perhaps others see that sparks that possibility of making a living out of sport. There is nothing wrong with that. I often tell a story told by an ex AB coach, Wayne Smith. His two sons came to St Bede’s a number of years ago. He was invited in to speak with sixty of our best sportsmen from all codes. At one point during his talk to them, he got one student to stand up and he simply said “If sixty was the number who wished to make a living out of sport, then only one would achieve this” – his message was simple. Have your dream at school and after you leave (remember that there are many natural sportsmen who couldn’t make their top teams at school) – but have Plan B, and work towards something you’ll do for a living if firstly you don’t make it to be a pro, and secondly a pathway to what happens when you stop playing sport.

In the world we live in now afflicted by pandemics, the resources available to fund pro-sport are not as readily obtainable / accessible as they once were.

Plan B’s are even more important!

Belated, congratulations to our summer sports awardees and to those who recieve Honors Pockets."

Stay safe and God bless.

Until next week,

J.G. Boyle