St Mary’s College Esports Club currently consists of 18 young women and is the only all-female esports club in Northern Ireland, writes student Orlaith Henry.
Currently, there are three senior girls, 11 second-years, two third-years and two first years in attendance in the all-girls school; we are a relatively young group when you consider some of the FE students who compete!
The club is run by Ms R Poole on a Wednesday after school hours. We have competed in multiple competitions both online and in-person. These include the Digital Schoolhouse Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Team Battle competition and Belfast Metropolitan College’s Rocket League competition.
The young women who attend our esports club are extremely friendly and fun. Many have us have really gelled and become firm friends, even though we are in different year groups. The club has also helped some of the more timid girls in school form relationships.
Our coach is Jay Dickson – he’s a professional drummer, avid gamer (currently a Rainbow Six Siege aficionado) and regular competitor in worldwide Mortal Kombat tournaments. Jay teaches us about controls, characters and tactics which improves our technique and helps us perform better. Our coach also brings us snacks to fuel our practice every week!
Our progress in the game has been extremely impressive and it’s amazing how much we’ve learned in only a matter months, with the support of our coach. While practising for the Super Smash Bros tournament, our school has kindly invested in some other games we are interested in, like Mario Kart, which we now have the option to play.
“Our team is growing each year as we have been working hard to promote esports in our all-girls school. We continue to become an increasingly competitive and formidable team – and we aim to achieve this by drawing more females from our area into the sport.”
We even have four Switch set ups thanks to Digital Schoolhouse, which supplies the consoles, and our school, which supplies the monitors, TV screens and projectors.
Outside of our tournament endeavours, esports club has also allowed us to get involved in other fun activities. Early in 2022, we got to go to a local gaming arena – the Belong Arena, Derry. During our trip to the arena, we got to play on a range of consoles such as Xboxes, PlayStations and professional gaming PCs. We also managed to sneak in a cheeky McDonald’s!
On January 12th, 13th and 16th this year, our club also had an amazing opportunity to promote esports to young pupils, as part of a series of ‘taster’ workshops ran to show primary schools everything St Mary’s College has to offer.
Some of our members taught the primary pupils the basics of Super Smash Bros and they participated in a mini-tournament. They had a ball – and feedback forms showed some great interest in joining our team!
Our team is growing each year as we have been working hard to promote esports in our all-girls school. We continue to become an increasingly competitive and formidable team – and we aim to achieve this by drawing more females from our area into the sport.
About this article and Digital Schoolhouse
This article was written by Orlaith Henry (pictured, middle), a student from St. Mary’s College in Derry, Northern Ireland.
It was the winning article in a Digital Schoolhouse journalism competition judged by Esports News UK editor Dom Sacco (right). Orlaith plays in the college’s Smash Bros team, along with Erin Campbell (left), in the Digital Schoolhouse esports tournament.
The BBC even wrote an article on the win, titled: ‘Esports: Londonderry girl gamers recognised for challenging stereotypes‘.
Digital Schoolhouse, together with Nintendo UK, uses play-based learning to engage the next generation of pupils and teachers with the computing curriculum. It hosts esports tournaments for schools and colleges across the UK including the recent Digital Schoolhouse Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Team Battle Grand Final, won by Norton College for the second year running.
Digital Schoolhouse is delivered by the UK games industry trade body Ukie and is backed by the video games industry and government. Sponsors include PlayStation®, Electronic Arts, SEGA, Ubisoft and Outright Games.
Congratulations to St. Mary’s College for the winning entry, and thanks to all others who wrote articles for the competition. Esports News UK is delighted to be a part of this and looks forward to next year’s competition.
