Windermere Prep hosts Nord Anglia students nationwide for Global Games

For a few days, Windermere Preparatory School had about 1,000 more middle-school students than usual.

That’s because students from 11 Nord Anglia schools across the United States made the trip to West Orange for a few days to participate in the annual Global Games.

For five days, participating middle-school students from Windermere Prep not only went head-to-head in competition with students from other schools, but also joined them hand-in-hand as new friendships formed.

“The Lakers enjoyed a fun-filled week and had a blast competing at last week’s Global Games,” school officials posted on its athletics webpage. “Windermere Prep earned the overall gold after winning the volleyball and sand-volleyball divisions.” 

Actual competition took place from Wednesday, Nov. 29, to Friday, Dec. 1, but the Lakers also used the weeklong festivities to participate in other fun activities and meet other Nord Anglia students.

Eighth-grader Janella Laaksone, 14, participated in five of the nine total sports offered. This was her third year participating in the Global Games, and she was involved in track and field, soccer, volleyball, basketball and flag football.

“I play soccer, I‘ve done track for two years, and I used to play volleyball,” she said. “I’ve never played basketball, but they encourage students that even if you haven’t played (a sport) you can try to play it during Global Games. We also don’t have a flag football team, but I love flag football.”

Two of Laaksone’s teams — her soccer and flag football teams — won the gold division, and Windermere Prep won the Global Games overall.

“You get that extra-accomplished feeling when your team wins and you’re able to pull through for your whole school,” she said.

It’s an annual event that always creates a buzz of excitement among the students. And although the competition is one of the biggest components, another goal of the Global Games is to encourage students to make new friends.

“It’s really cool to be able to see so many different students from so many places in one area and be able to talk to them and see how their schools are,” Laaksone said. “Seeing that many people on our campus is crazy and cool, because there’s so many people you’ve never met. … Being the host school especially, we were encouraged to show the other teams around and made sure they knew where they had to go and helped them out.

“You’re able to play with people you’ve never particularly been in contact with before, so you learn teamwork and team-bonding skills with people you’ve never worked with before,” she said.