Recently, the whole of Year 7 took part in a Disability Sports Day led by Daisy UK, a multi-award winning inclusive sports charity. The students experienced a number of Disability Sport sessions, promoting inclusion and diversity. Daisy UK staff were able to impart a wealth of knowledge and experience around Disability Sport and inclusion to our students, including: Boccia; Visually Impaired Cricket; Wheelchair Sports and a very well received talk from Dave Kelly, Daisy UK’s founder. The day was very successful and a big hit with all of our students who responded positively to all sessions.
Here is an account of the day from a student.
"On Friday the 14th of July 2017 a disability awareness charity named DAISY (Disability Awareness Introducing Sport to Youngsters) came into school to do a disabled sports awareness day. This took up the first three lessons (sadly not all day) and between our PE times we were split into three groups. I was in group one and first we had wheelchair relay races, although my team did not win it was fun and it did make me understand what the lives of people in wheelchairs was like. Next we had visually impaired cricket where all the batters had to wear a blindfold and bat a ball with a shaking sound (so we knew where it was) and it was brilliant especially because the people who were normally better at cricket were worse. After cricket we had boccia, (I had played it before) which is an activity I love but did not know that it was developed for people in wheelchairs with little upper body strength. I played 2-3 times and won half of my games. After break Dave told us about his life when he went blind and about the start of DAISY and how the idea came to him. It was very informing and changed my perspective of blindness a lot. Thanks Dave and everyone at DAISY UK."
Another student also had something to say about the day.
"I really liked the Wheelchair Sports because supports people and gives them the opportunity to participate in sport. The talk with Dave was good because he was funny and he said he was the happiest person who is blind. This stopped me feeling sorry for him and made me think he was just as happy as everyone else even though he is blind. Thank you Dave!"
You can see more of the day here.