Junior Swimmers Mammoth Fundraiser
My name is Claire Hollis and I am looking after Social Action in school this year, while Kayleigh Oliver is on maternity leave. When I heard that the Junior Swimmers had been working hard in the pool to raise money to help with the Turkey and Syria relief effort, I knew I had to get down there and find out more.
So, in true investigative reporter style, read on for my exclusive interview with our resident dolphins; sorry – I mean Junior Swim Team…
The sponsored swim sounded really hard work! How did you prepare?
Every weds night in swimming, we did some really hard training; you do an awful amount of strokes for different times. The hardest was Butterfly because it was really tiring – you have to use all your arms and legs at the same time!
How long did it take you all to complete the sponsored swim?
I think it was half an hour each and it got really tiring after the middle bit and by the end it was hard! At the beginning everyone was super energetic so we hard to work hard to pace ourselves. By about minute 28 we were all exhausted! When we got out of the pool we all flopped!
Did you ever feel like giving up and, if so, what did you do?
We did so we pretended that there was a shark behind us chasing us and we also pretended there was going to be a big reward at the end!
Any advice for anyone who would like to have a go themselves?
Don’t give up and keep trying.
Don‘t go to fast at the start – pace yourselves.
Choose Breaststroke – it’s the easiest one to pace.
Put loads of time and effort into training beforehand.
It’s really hard but the work really pays off at the end.
Keep a positive mindset and don’t go too fast at the start – gradually get faster.
Keep trying and push as hard as you can.
When you want to give up, keep in your mind that what you are doing is for a good cause.
Anyone can do it – if you want to, go to your pool and have a go.
It’s always going to be hard but you can definitely do it if you try!
DREAM BELIEVE ACHIEVE!
Teachers Murray Gibb and Jacob Butterfield explained more about how the campaign came about…
Annually, the Junior school do a sponsored swim in order to help contribute money towards the schools charities however, we though that due to the travesty that has occurred in Turkey and Syria, we could move the swim earlier and help increase the schools total towards the DEC. At the time, the focus within lessons was also distance swimming awards so we thought that this event would be the best test of how far they could really swim within a time. Swimming is a sport at the school which we are very passionate about and we are truly lucky to have the facilities on site to be able to do an event like this. If anyone would ever want to do something like this, I would say go for it. Work and train hard, be positive, resilient when things get tough, anyone can do anything when they put their mind to it. Thank you to everyone who donated money to the cause, this will truly go a long way.
We are all so proud of our Junior swimmers – they are a fabulously committed team who have worked incredibly hard under a lot of pressure.
The money they have raised will be added to our final donation to DEC- this is now an incredible £9000.
Thank you to everyone in our community and beyond who helped – we are hugely grateful to each and every one of you.
