One of the most anticipated annual youth netball tournaments in the region wrapped up this week with a dramatic final, leaving organizers and spectators praising the quality of play and seamless event execution. Tracey Leacock, senior netball coach at the National Sports Council, delivered a glowing assessment of the 2024 Pedialyte Sport Primary Schools Competition following Wednesday’s championship match, where Shirley Chisholm Primary extended its historic winning streak to five consecutive titles with a hard-fought victory over runner-up West Terrace Primary.
In Leacock’s assessment, every stage of this year’s tournament — from the early zonal qualifying rounds to the final championship clash — went far better than many expected. She highlighted three key factors behind the event’s smooth running: meticulous advance planning by organizers, cooperative, favorable weather that eliminated weather-related delays, and well-coordinated logistics across every venue. “The execution was almost seamless this year,” Leacock shared in a post-final interview. “We had the competition in the zones which ran really well and even the weather cooperated this year. We went on to our playoffs, which were held in Gall Hill St John and that too went off effortlessly and culminated in a successful final.”
Beyond the smooth event logistics, Leacock expressed particular satisfaction with the dramatic improvement in playing standards across all participating schools this year. She attributed this rising quality to a growing grassroots passion for the sport, with more young female athletes competing regularly outside the primary school tournament, including in the Barbados Netball Association (BNA) league. “The final was tremendous and generally throughout the tournament we’ve seen high standards of netball,” Leacock said. “I believe this can be attributed to girls playing more netball, playing in the BNA league as well and just generally having a love for netball and playing more. So we were able to see a very high standard of netball, especially from the playoffs where teams had to literally fight tooth and nail to advance.”
Wednesday’s final cemented Shirley Chisholm Primary’s status as the undisputed dominant force in primary school netball over the past decade. With five back-to-back championship titles, the Vauxhall-based school has set a benchmark that other competing programs are now actively working to match. Leacock noted that Shirley Chisholm’s consistent success stems from intentional extra work put in by players and coaches behind the scenes, a model that rival programs have begun adopting to close the performance gap.
“Over the years, we have recognised that the schools who have succeeded are the ones who are putting in the extra work,” Leacock explained. Even runner-up West Terrace Primary, she pointed out, has built a reputation for consistent hard work that brought them to the final this year. Competing schools including All Saints Primary and Christ Church Girls have also taken note of the winning formula, and are increasing their training commitments to earn a spot in future championship matches. “We are seeing across the board, persons are working hard so that they too can come to the finals,” Leacock added.