14 years ago the Sheffield Schools Bouldering Competition was introduced. When it originally began, it was just for SEND schools, and due to interest was later opened to all Sheffield schools. This led to the competition growing massively in popularity. It’s been great to see so many familiar faces at the event over the years, but it is even more rewarding to introduce new people into climbing, and show them why we love it so much. For this reason, this year we made an effort to return to our original ethos and we asked schools to bring as many new climbers as they could, rather than focusing on those who already have access to the sport. We were delighted to see that again we had over 700 enter the competition and this time the majority of them hadn’t climbed before, or at least didn’t climb regularly.
Throughout January and February we had 51 schools take part in our qualification rounds. We then hosted separate finals for Sheffield and Greater Sheffield Primary and Secondary schools. Sheffield Primary is always a busy category, so to continue with our inclusive ethos, we not only invited the top 10 schools, we also had a ‘golden ticket’ in which one school was picked at random to join. This lucky school was High Green Primary, whose teacher said
“Our children absolutely loved it and thank you so much for the golden ticket!!”
At the finals, we wanted to put just as much emphasis on individuals who tried hard and were supportive of their teammates as those who got a spot on the podium. We asked our coaches to keep an eye out for members of their team who met one of the chosen Sheffield games values (determination, passion, teamwork or self belief) and they were then awarded a special prize and certificate.
These prizes and our podium goodies were kindly donated by our generous sponsors
CORE, Scarpa, Moon, Beta, North Face, Alpkit, Lattice and Wide Boyz
The overall results from our finals are as follows
Sheffield Primary Finals
Position | School | Score |
1st | Hunters Bar | 633 |
2nd | Mylnhurst | 593 |
3rd | Nether Green | 575 |
4th | Westways Primary | 538 |
5th | Totley Primary | 535 |
6th | Dore Primary | 493 |
7th | Walkley | 479 |
8th | Bethany Primary | 450 |
9th | Wybourn Community Primary | 405 |
10th | High Green Primary | 392 |
Sheffield Secondary Finals
Position | School | Score |
1st | Silverdale | 629 |
2nd | Tapton | 550 |
3rd | Bethany Secondary | 502 |
4th | Westfield school | 459 |
5th | Notre Dame High School | 448 |
Greater Sheffield Primary Finals
Position | School | Score |
1st | Ellis CoE | 549 |
2nd | William Levick | 519 |
3rd | Hoyland Springwood | 441 |
4th | Hoyland Common | 430 |
5th | Birdwell | 429 |
6th | Sitwell Junior | 401 |
7th | The Hill Primary Acad | 388 |
8th | Barlow CoE | 290 |
Greater Sheffield Secondary Finals
Position | School | Score |
1st | Hope Valley | 745 |
2nd | Nottingham High | 567 |
3rd | Eckington School | 171 |
As always the event would not be as enjoyable and successful as it is without our wonderful route setters and coaching team. It is also important to give a big thanks to all of the teachers and parents who made arrangements to bring their schools down.
And finally as well as our great sponsors, we also want to thank Thornbridge Outdoors and LINKS for their ongoing support with this event.
We are continuing to evolve this competition, and welcome you to send any feedback or suggestions should you have any to Ruth@climbingworks.com.
We look forward to welcoming all of the schools back next year!
