Gritty Grasshopper 2024
25 June 2024
The 2024 edition of The Gritty Grasshopper has reached its muddy, wet, stench-filled conclusion! Hundreds of pupils took part and represented their Houses in this fantastic whole school event. The costumes were extraordinary, the laughter was infectious and the team spirit on display was truly heart warming.
Well done to everyone that took part in the Gritty Grasshopper 2024. It was the closest and fastest race we have had to date! Before we get to the results, let us just talk about fancy dress…there were some great fancy dress outfits this time around with an extra special mention to the Edinburgh Year 10 scuba rescue team, and all those that attempted it in a onesie, a tougher challenge than some may think. Maybe a new category for next year’s event? Also, we do have a couple of wigs that fell off while you were venturing about the course, so let us know if you are missing one otherwise Father Jack will add them to his dressing up box.
This fantastic whole school event saw over 180 pupils take part. The Houses came together to raise some much-needed funds for the Holt Youth Project, at the last count the total was about £3,500. If you still wish to donate, you can do so here https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/grittygrasshopper2024
As usual there are a few different categories; the team race, the House race, and the ultimate winners; which is a combination of the House race time and total funds raised by the House. To work this out, we subtracted the total pennies raised from the Houses’ total time. This year we also had the newcomers; Arkell, this added a little spice to the race calculations, as they are currently only able to enter one team, but for the first time in the main race’s history, it was a mixed team.
The top 11 teams finished the course within 5 minutes of each other, making it the fastest GG we have had so far. Joint third fastest with 36 minutes were Tallis Year 12, Farfield Year 10 and Woodlands Year 10. Finishing in 34 minutes were the joint second fastest teams; Arkell’s Year 12 co-ed team and Tallis Year 9 who must be a team to watch out for going forward. Another upcoming team to watch out for is the Oakeley Year 10 team who managed to take second place in the Year 10 overall race. The fastest team on the day was the Woodlands Year 12 team who finished in 32 minutes, which is a new course record.
Next, House totals. When we added together the times of all year groups within each House, we see that Tallis came in third with a total time of 111 minutes, Farfield a close second with 110 minutes and Woodlands the fastest house on the day with a total of 105 minutes.
All the Houses made an amazing effort to raise funds this year, with more money raised before the event than ever before. Our top four fundraisers are in reverse order: fourth place Howson’s, third place Oakeley, second place Tallis and in front by a considerable amount, Queens’.
The Ultimate race winners and those taking away the prized Gritty Grasshopper again this year are Woodlands.
