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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Sports scholarship - mind sharing with me?

29 replies

Whowherewhywhat · 17/01/2014 18:26

Hi would you mind sharing what types of sports achievements that your children have that hot them a sports scholarship? Am interested to know what sort of level,and sport inside and put that they needed to do..

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Bowlersarm · 17/01/2014 18:32

My DS played football for a pro club. And cricket for the district.

It varies on the schools. Some award mainly to county players. Others give sports scholarships away if a child plays constantly for their school, and shows a good level of skill across a variety of sports.

Look at a few of the websites of schools you are interested in, and it'll give you an indication of what they are looking for.

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 17/01/2014 19:17

Thanks bowlers arm, my son currently plays for the a teams if all his prep school teams and plays for a local football team, he's seen as a promising sportsman but not sure how to take it to next level to try out at district or county level, not sure if we are taking him to the right things to get a chance at trying out for county level, any advice?

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Bowlersarm · 17/01/2014 19:38

Hi op. Just about to arrive at some friends for dinner so I'll have a think and post tomorrow. Hopefully someone else will be along to advise as well.

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 17/01/2014 20:16

Thanks bowlers arm, have a great night :)

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Butkin · 17/01/2014 20:55

Our DD is yr 6 and she's going for her scholarship at the moment. She rides her pony at a National level (qualified for Horse of the year Show), is selected for her County Academy at Netball, plays hockey for the local town club, runs X Country for her school to a decent level. This is in addition to captaining her schools A teams at all sports. I think they want you to be noticed beyond school (ie county level and hopefully national).

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 17/01/2014 23:12

Thanks Butkin, can I ask how she got to county level? Was it via school try outs, or external clubs outside of school? :)

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Lonecatwithkitten · 17/01/2014 23:15

Friend's DD has sports scholarship is in top 10 nationally in her stroke over her distance in her age group for swimming and top 30 for the three other strokes. She also plays Netball, hockey and Rounders for the school.

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 17/01/2014 23:17

CAn I ask a further question, have you guided your children to those sports or have they chosen them? I don't mean pushy parenting , but as an example, do you have interests and clubs that you also attend in these fields?

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Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 17/01/2014 23:18

Apologies for atrocious spelling earlier, switched to iPad so shouldn't be so bad lol!

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hmc · 17/01/2014 23:27

My dd got a sports scholarship for her new school Y7 onwards. It is a small school - only around 30 children in Y7 over two classes. She is good at sports but I can't claim county level credentials particularly, although whilst at state primary in Y6 she was in a netball team that won area and district finals and came second in the county finals (and she was one of their best players). She plays girls football outside school (which they were aware of in assessing her for the scholarship) and according to her team manager is one of his most able players. She is rather good at sprinting - silver medal in the district meet. She plays cricket as the sole girl in a boys team - she is not especially 'wow' at it but I think the school was impressed nevertheless. I think they particularly liked her love of sport coupled with lack of excessive ego

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 18/01/2014 00:00

Thanks HMC, that's really interesting, I guess, as BOwlersarm suggested earlier, it is specific to the school they are applying to. We are just trying to make sure that we give DS all the opportunities and have a real understanding of what level he needs to be at. He is currently yr 4, and he loves all sports and doesn't really want to focus on one particular one at the moment, which I don't blame him, but you have to specialise to a level if you want to get to County level at a young age, it's tricky.......by the way, congratulations to your childrens great achievements!

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KingscoteStaff · 18/01/2014 08:46

My DS was County U11s cricket, County tennis squad (this is quite large - 20ish boys), A team club rugby, A team club football (local league, not a professional club), School A teams for hockey and Athletics. And he can swim. Just.

The schools we talked to seemed to be expecting one county and one district sport at least.

Lonecatwithkitten · 18/01/2014 08:51

Friend's DD just went to club in year 3 to keep up swimming. Started going to competitions in year 4 did okay. In year 5 went to the counties was 2 seconds off a regional time at an event got in the car to go home and she said ' right where can we go o get that regional time'.
The choice of swimming was lucky the drive to national level came from within her.

KingscoteStaff · 18/01/2014 08:57

If your Y4 son is playing for a cricket club, then this year there may well be an U9s District squad (picked from perhaps the 4 nearest clubs). The district will also source players from local schools (but this requires PE teachers who respond to emails...). Your district will then have matches against the other districts in the County.

The district then recommend players for County selection - in our county they trialled about 150 boys for a squad of 25 at Under 9s. This happens each year - every boy is reassessed.

I have just noticed that you asked how much of my son's sporting interests are due to us and how much to him. I have no eye for a ball myself, and never even got into a school team, but my DH plays cricket and racket sports.

To be honest, it's really due to his enthusiasm, plus the fact that his friendship group were also doing these things (they had older brothers).

Bowlersarm · 18/01/2014 09:38

Ok. Have a coffee and no hangover. Hooray!

Our DS showed a talent for all ball sports from about 6. His passion was for football so that's the one he mainly did, but he also played a lot of cricket in the summer. At his prep school, like your ds, he was a natural selection for all the a teams. But although his prep school liked a sporty reputation, it wasn't actually much help for us with progressing outside of school.

We took it upon ourselves to find out when here were district football and cricket trials and took him along to them. He was selected for both teams so played for a couple of years in both sports. His district football coach put him in for trials with a professional club and they signed him at aged 11. At that stage he dropped the cricket because it was becoming too time consuming to do both.

I think rugby has the same sort of system too.

At 13 he got a sports scholarship to senior school because he was playing at a high level, but tbh that all became a bit of a pain, as the school understandably wanted him to play for them but he needed to play for the club, as he wanted to become a professional footballer, so it all clashed a bit uncomfortably and became more trouble than it was worth.

If your DS is year 4 I think it's good he is enjoying experiencing a few sports. He'll probably decide himself what he is more passionate about. But to take it to a different level, look into it all yourself.

One of my other DSes is at a school where they do give out a fair amount of sports scholarships if you are a good prep school player, but haven't taken it to a higher level, and i suppose they see potential. So I think it really does depend on the school.

Hope that helps.

Coconutty · 18/01/2014 09:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 18/01/2014 10:38

Thanks for all your great replies ladies, soo glad to see your children didn't have to specialise to early just be involved in as many as they are interested in.
So I need to go and look into the district / county processes, I'd assumed they only got selected via school so your insight is much appreciated that you can look look into it and put them forward for trials ourselves.
Looks like our our weeks and weekends will be even more chocca moving forward, lol!

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allmycats · 18/01/2014 10:59

My son was County champion at athletics and ranked in the top three
in the north/south/midlands tri rankings and part of the GB trainign squad. BUT BEWARE -
At the age your son will not be specialising in any particular sport but as he gets older I would suggest that you are quite careful with sports scholarships as schools tend to want the person to compete for the school at every game/meeting/event etc - often to the detriment of the
athletes aims for the season/year. Schools also tend to want you to go along with whatever their PE specialist says, however, most athletes at County level and above will have outside coaching from specialist coach and be part of an external sports club/specialist training squad and it is the outside coaching/squads that will mould the athlete and work out the training plans.
You may well find that the school has an event on, say. the Friday afternoon where they expect the scholarship person to compete, however, the County/National Championships may be on the Saturday/Sunday and there is no way that they compete at both !!

Coconutty · 18/01/2014 11:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RiversideMum · 18/01/2014 11:43

A friend of my son got a sports scholarship. He had to get an academy place to secure it, although then the school got a bit snotty about him going to academy training. The lad was a weekly boarder, but as a sports scholar he had to play for all the teams so that knocked out most Saturdays too.

senua · 18/01/2014 11:54

I second what riverside says. You only get a scholarship for a school if you are very good eg County standard. But once you are at the school they want you to prioritise the school over County.

hmc · 18/01/2014 12:21

In your experience senua, not in mine

RiversideMum · 18/01/2014 14:00

So then the lesson is to ask lots of questions and make sure the terms fit with how you want your family to live rather than being flattered by a scholarship offer.

Butkin · 18/01/2014 17:32

WhoWhere, DD has played netball since she was Yr 3 and never missed a match or after school club. Her school put her forward to our County try out (along with 4 others) and she and 3 others made the cut at the try outs. Now it's a case of just sticking with their system. She has to go every other Saturday for 2 hours of training (not matches - more fitness and skills) and it is obligatory to join an out of school club so she goes there on a Wednesday evening. It's all bringing her on and she's captaining her school U11s with success. The hockey was a question of joining the local club and making sure she's always available for matches. Luckily it's a Winter activity and her horse shows are mainly Summer and Autumn.

Original poster

Whowherewhywhat · 18/01/2014 19:35

Thanks soo much for all your replies ladies. We want to help our children progress as much as they can in sport as they are all very sporty and we don't want them to miss out due to our lack of knowledge, so I really appreciate all your insights, and if it leads to scholarship then great. Thanks all again :)

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