Students at Bede Academy, in Blyth, received their awards in a range of sports from Everest mountaineer Geoff Chambers, who highlighted the trust in others that is required at the extremes of endurance.
He said: “Without Sherpas you can’t succeed up a mountain above 7,000m. You need a support team around you. When things go wrong you have to know whoever you are with will support you. It taught me to be very humble.”
Mr Chambers revealed how he passed the corpses of other climbers as he scaled the world’s highest mountain in 2011 and suffered frost nip collecting snow from the 8,850m summit into bottles to bring home and be used to baptise any future grandchildren.
He told students his first thought on reaching the summit, where he stayed for just eight minutes, was: “How do I get back down?”
Mr Chambers, from Northern Ireland, had spent the day at the academy, sharing his story with students before speaking at the annual Sports Awards.
He told the students: “It’s incredible what you have around you and I compliment everyone on their achievements.”
Bede Academy Principal Gwyneth Evans said: “Our annual Sports Awards presentation is when we celebrate the achievement and accomplishments of our sportsmen and women and congratulate them for their commitment, dedication, hard work and perseverance.
“We also recognise and thank their coaches and teachers for the time and effort they put in, taking our teams to matches and working with them to help them achieve their goals.”
Director of Sport Simon McAree said highlights of the year included the Easter sports tour to Holland, the Year 10 rugby team reaching the County Cup final and 29 new records at sports day.
He added: “Whilst we celebrate our successes we know that further work is needed if we are to continue to improve next year.”
Awards were presented to the top performers and the players’ players in athletics, basketball, tennis, cricket, rounders, hockey, netball and rugby.
Students in Year 6, who will move from Bede South primary site to the North site in September, were also recognised in a range of sports.
The Stannard Award for outstanding contribution to sport in the academy was presented to Robbie Mitchelson.
Miss Evans said: “Robbie has made a huge contribution to academy rugby during his seven years at Bede, both as a player and most recently as a referee. He is captain of the first XV and has also devoted huge amounts of time to refereeing fixtures for all our teams.”
Award winners:
Athletes of the year: Abbie Ross, Ellie Morris, Olivia Quinn, Adam Swalwell
Basketball player of the year: Alex Jones
Tennis player of the year: Joe Fell, Ellie Burt
Cricket players of the year: Dylan Crews, Liam Watson
Rounders players of the year: Abigail Herron, Abby Cooke, Sarah McGuigan, Eve Barrett
Hockey:
Year 7 – players’ player: Jasmine Cole; player of the year: Jessica Bate
Year 8 – players’ player: Alice Holman; player of the year: Lauren Gannie
Year 9 – players’ player: Erin Kutyla; player of the year: Poppy Gates
Year 10 – players’ player: Paige Wilkinson; player of the year: Amber Cochrane
First XI – players’ player: Tyler McGowan; player of the year: Jessica Wright
Netball:
Year 7 – players’ player: Holly Robinson; player of the year: Alexis Waite
Year 8 – players’ player: Keira Raine; player of the year: Olivia Edwards
Year 9 – players’ player: Tabby Carling; player of the year: Taylor Hogg
Year 10 – players’ player: Brooke McGowan; player of the year: Robyn Willis
Rugby:
Year 7 – players’ player: Vegas Liddell; player of the year: Ben Fell
Year 8 – players’ player: Jake Martin; player of the year: Adam Graham
Year 9 – players’ player: Callum Jackson; player of the year: Elliot Cook
Year 10 – players’ player: Luke Giles; player of the year: Liam Hayes
First XV – players’ player: Tom Marshall; player of the year: Jordan Knight
Year 6 awards:
Hockey player of the year: Ellie O’Brien
Rugby player of the year: Finlay Scott
Football players of the year: Devyn Wilson, Evan Redford
Rounders player of the year: Amelia Fairhurst
Cricket player of the year: Harry Stratford
Netball player of the year: Elizabeth Shutt
Athlete of the year: Maddie Dobison Hall
The Stannard Award: Robbie Mitchelson