By Iris Feliks, NHEHS Games Captain, Year 12

The role of Games Captain at school is all about elevating and encouraging sport among girls across the school, of all abilities and passions within sport. This involves watching over the extensive varieties of sport that the school offers from water polo to squash and aiming to inspire younger girls to try new activities or to continue to find passion and enthusiasm for their current sports.

This year especially, sport at school has been very important in allowing students to reintegrate into normal school life, following the chaotic year it has been. Maintaining school sports over lockdown was certainly a very challenging task for the sports department, and Jojo, who put in so much effort to keep girls active and enthused in sport over the very difficult period. My aims coming into the role were to help girls to re-engage with sports following quite a long period away from playing. It also provides a great way to make new friends for the newer years and for daily life to feel more back to the usual swing of things in the return to school.

It was certainly quite challenging to continue playing sports over the lockdown, especially as my favourite sport is netball which definitely poses a challenge to play on your own or without a team. This meant I became much more inspired to go out running, especially as the weather was relatively nice and sunny. Running down the Thames, or through the very quiet central London, was always very peaceful and gave me an easy way to ground myself and stay motivated. I also installed a basketball hoop and created new shooting games with my family to stay entertained and work on hand-eye coordination in a fun way. However, I much prefer being back with my school team and training for netball alongside my friends.

Following this, I think the best thing for staying active this winter is to try and find an exercise buddy to go on runs with or practice skills specific to your sport at a local park. Having someone else with you is often a good way to distract yourself from the potential cold weather – it’s still a good plan to wear some winter friendly clothes to avoid getting too chilly. I found that going for runs with a friend always went much faster than running alone, but if you prefer exercising on your own finding interesting podcasts is another way to distract yourself. My personal faves are ‘Off menu’ or ‘The Desert Island Discs’.

I have especially enjoyed being able to help with the youngest years of the school at events such as netball trials and sporting events, they are always so full of energy and enthusiastic about new sports and getting involved. It also reminds me of joining in year 7 and the way that netball helped me to settle into the school and make new friends who I still play with.

As mentioned, Netball and running are my absolute favourite sports to do, but I really love having a go at any sports – I attend hockey and football training weekly as a way to mix up my usual sports and have really enjoyed trying to learn new skills in each of them – even though I am still relatively new to them and often slightly confused by the rules, I have loved getting involved! However, I am very loyal to Netball as my passion in sports as I have been playing since Primary School and always enjoyed the team aspect, as well as the satisfaction of making a successful interception. I hope to continue playing at university as I cannot imagine not playing netball weekly.

My sporting inspiration is the author of ‘Running Like A girl’ which documents Alexandra Heminsley’s journey into marathon running (as someone who previously hated the concept of running). I read this at a time where I was struggling with motivation for running and I found it very relatable and informative, while really re-igniting my passions for running and giving me a better perspective on my personal journey with running.

Looking forward, the biggest obstacle for women and girls in sports, in my opinion, is the gender disparity in financial recognition of elite players. Despite the hard work and successes of many national women’s teams, for example the England Roses winning gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games for netball, women’s teams are frequently paid significantly less than their male counterparts, highlighting the struggles that many female athletes experience when playing elite sports.