On Thursday 26th January we met at the board at 11:25 to go to the Redbridge Mini Games Swimming Gala held at Fullwell Cross in Barkingside. This was a big gala with 15 U11 swimming teams from Redbridge competing. We travelled on the school minibus and we were bouncing on our seats with excitement.

The boys went into one changing room and the girls went in the other. It was very busy so we tried to share lockers but some of us had big bags. When we walked out of the changing room with our towel and goggles we put on our St. Aubyn’s swim hats. All the schools had a bench to sit on while they watched their team or other teams swim.We raced in heats as there were only 5 lanes and 15 schools competing. There were as many as 4 heats for each event and although you were racing against the other children in your heat you were really racing against the clock to get the fastest time over all heats.

The first race was boys backstroke and St Aubyn’s boys raced in heat 2 with Alex in Lane 1 and in heat 3 with Brandon in Lane 3. Alex and Brandon both won their heats. Then we moved onto girls backstroke with Lucy in Heat 2 Lane 2. Lucy won as well. This gave us a really strong start. In the boys breaststroke Alex and Theo  were both competing in heat 3. In the girls breaststroke Lucy came 2nd in heat 3 and Liah came 4th in heat 4. Next came the boys freestyle relay Theo, Zac, Brandon and  Bram  raced and came 3rd. In the girls freestyle Lilah, Mari-Kate, Olivia and Lucy came 2nd in Heat 1. The boys butterfly saw Zac came 1st in heat 1 and Alex came 4th in the same heat. In the girls butterfly Lilah came 2nd in heat 1 and Mari-Kate came 3rd in heat 2. In the freestyle Zac came 2nd and Mari-Kate came 3rd in Heat 5.

Finally in the boys medley relay Alex, Theo, Brandon and Zac came 2nd and in the girls Mari-Kate, Lilah, Olivia and Lucy came 1st.Once all the races were finished the times were calculated and St Aubyn’s came 4th overall out of  the 15 schools. Mr B was very happy.  

Mari-Kate Year 6