Hartlepool school named Tees Valley champions in golfing competition

The Tri Golf team at Clavering Primary has been crowned Tees Valley champions after coing out on top among 200 schools.

The children were crowned town champions, having won the town finals, held at The Sports Domes in Seaton Carew, and just two weeks later, they competed at the Tees Valley finals.

The competition featured the top teams from more than 200 primary schools throughout the area, and the Clavering superstars putted and chipped to success, being crowned the best team out of the whole Tees Valley.

Deputy headteacher Neil McAvoy, who directs the nationally-recognised Clavering physical education, school sport and physical activity (PESSPA) programme, said: “All of our golfers have given up some of their free time to train for the town finals and then the Tees Valley finals, this is typical of the level of dedication we see (and expect) from our pupils.

“The children have competed with great spirit and great togetherness and their success goes down as one of our greatest competitive sport achievements.

“We are delighted to have won for Clavering and also for Hartlepool, as it is very rare for a Hartlepool school to win gold at a Tees Valley finals.”

The Clavering team achieved 1,401 points to achieve gold, followed by Redcar’s Normanby Primary with 1,359 points, and Middlesbrough’s Acklam Whin Primary with 1,256 points.

The victory came after Clavering’s 2015-16 silver medal and their 2016-17 silver medal, losing by only one point.

Mr McAvoy added: “To have been crowned town champions for three consecutive years and to medal in the last three Tees Valley Finals is very, very special.

“Tri Golf is one of around 15 different sports formats that we annually compete in, and is also a very popular sport context that we use in our PE curriculum with all our upper school pupils.

“As fantastic as it is to keep achieving so well in inter-school competitive sport, our ultimate goal is to produce pupils who are committed to a lifelong healthy, active lifestyle.

“We work tirelessly through our PESSPA programme and overall school offer to try and achieve this.”

The team was presented with medals by local golfer and national champion Cameron Wallace, who Mr McAvoy taught when he was in Year 2.