‘Dragons’ choose boxing for new academy sports club

​Proposals to create a new boxing club at a Wisbech academy received a resounding ‘we’re in’ from a panel of ‘dragons’ who had a tough choice to make.

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Three groups of pupils at the Thomas Clarkson Academy pitched, in the style of the BBC’s Dragons’ Den programme, for a £1,000 funding pot to create the new club and they all gave compelling cases for their particular sport, making it extremely difficult for the panel to choose a winner.

The ‘dragons’ panel included academy principal Richard Scott and Amy Anderson, second in the PE department, along with Megan Fey and Chris Dennis from the Living Sport charity, who had to decide which of the groups would receive the £1,000 funds to create a new club to be run at our school.

The new club choices were Laser Tag, Ultimate Frisbee and boxing - with the panel deciding it was the boxing that should receive the money to go ahead and launch a new club.

“It was a really tough decision because all the groups had worked so hard to present their pitches. They had thoroughly researched their sport and gave us good reasons why the money should be awarded to them. But ultimately we had to make a choice, and we all felt the boxing pitch was the most worthy winner,” said Mr Scott.

“We look forward to the first club meeting and hope many students will join and support those who made it possible,” he added.

All three groups stuck to the brief, which included the need to provide a positive experience for students aged from 14 to 19 with the new club, which has to run either at lunchtime or after school.

“It was a very tough call but we are all looking forward to the first meeting of the new boxing club and hope it is very successful. Congratulations to the pitching teams for their brilliant work,” said Miss Anderson.

Based on the popular BBC TV programme led by five multi-millionaires including Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden, the pitching session followed a workshop held in November with Living Sport, a charity designed to improve health and happiness of Cambridgeshire residents.

The winning pitch was made by students: Eleanor Beesley, Abi Condon, Hannah Nicholls, Kacey Coleman, Lacey Whitehead and Alisa Pavlovica.