We were lucky enough to get five tickets for the ‘GSA Girls Go For Gold Conference’ held at Wimbledon High School on Thursday 28 September.
Four hundred female students from Years 10-13 took part from a variety of Girls Schools Association Schools. Five of our Sports Scholars and GCSE pupils were very excited to attend; Emily Davies, Emily Fisher and Emily Strong from Year 11 and Molly Marshall and Abigail Moodie from Year 10.
The first session of the day was a Key Note Speech by Helen Glover. Helen is a double Olympic rowing champion who was an extraordinary all-round athlete before she became a rower. She told her inspirational story of how she became Olympic champion. Afterwards the girls were able to get a picture with her and even got to hold an Olympic medal.
Other lectures the girls attended included one on Sports Psychology and one on Nutrition. The staff were able to go to a workshop about promoting Gifted and Talented pupils. The girls were extremely lucky to attend various coaching sessions. Abby and Molly went to the Wimbledon practice tennis courts and had a coaching session with a professional tennis coach. Both Emilys attended a netball coaching session run by Tania Hoffman who is the Director of Netball for Surrey Storm.
In the afternoon Molly, Abby and Emily D had an inspirational hockey coaching session by Crista Cullen, who was part of Great Britain’s Olympic Gold medal winning hockey team. This time they managed to wear an Olympic medal whilst having their photo taken with her.
Emily S and Emily F were extremely excited that they were able to have a football coaching session with Frank Lampard. Needless to say there were lots of photos taken!
The day finished with a Question and Answer session with five famous sports people. The girls were able to pose their questions to Frank Lampard and Crista Cullen as well as Karen Pickering (World Champion Swimmer), Graham Thorpe (Professional Cricketer) and Gillian Lindsay (Olympic Rowing Champion).
It certainly was an excellent and very enjoyable day and one I am sure the girls will cherish. Hopefully they will have been inspired to try and reach their full potential in whatever sport they choose to do.
Mrs S Buck, PE Teacher.