Sport at Links

At Links we are passionate about the role sport plays in child development. We are a member of Merton School Sports Partnership (MSSP), with whom we work closely in developing and providing a wide range of high quality sporting experiences for all our children. All year groups have access to 2 hours of high quality PE lessons per week, one lesson of which is led by the class teacher and the other of which is led by a sports specialist from the partnership. Children also have access to a wide range of extra-curricular sporting experiences.

This year we are proud to say that we were awarded the MSSP Platinum Award, recognizing our consistent Gold Awards over recent years. This reflects our commitment to PE and Sport at Links, and the hard work put in by all children and staff to ensure this remains a key focus of the school.

PE Curriculum

We follow MSSP’s PE scheme of work, which has been developed and refined by a range of experienced professionals and offers a development of skills both within and across year groups. Lessons cover a wide range of sports and physical activities, and are designed to cater for and develop a variety of skills, abilities and interests.

Swimming

Children in Reception learn water confidence through a term’s block of weekly swimming lessons. In Year 3, this is developed through weekly swimming over the course of the whole year, taught by professionals at Wimbledon Leisure Centre. Children who are still unable to swim the 25 metres required by the end of Key Stage 2 are then offered top up lessons in Year 5/6 (in the form of an intensive, daily, 3-week block) to give them the best opportunity to learn this valuable skill.

Competitive Sport

Here at Links we are keen to enter teams into a wide range of sporting competitions, giving opportunities to children throughout the school. This ranges from ‘best team’ events, designed for children who are keen to compete at a challenging level against their peers from other schools in the borough, to ‘participation’ events which give children an opportunity to discover and enjoy new sports. Our aim is that by the end of Year 6, all children have been given the opportunity to represent the school on at least one occasion. In addition to this, we have introduced a house system at Links which we are beginning to use to develop our provision for competitive intra-school sport.

RefSpect

As part of our commitment to competitive sport, we place a strong emphasis on ‘Refspect’, ensuring all children understand that sport is about more than our ability to compete, but rather our ability to encourage, support and work as a team, including how to be both good winners and good losers. We are immensely proud to say that in 2017/18 we were awarded the overall RefSpect Award from MSSP, as we received the most nominations of any school in the borough.

Clubs

At Links we offer a range of sporting clubs and opportunities, supported by a number of high-quality outside providers. These include:

Football – Fulham FC Football Foundation
Dance – Aim High Dance Academty
Hockey – Wimbledon Hockey Club
Multiskills – Merton School Sports Partnership