The pupils of Holy Redeemer School, Pershore swam to victory on Friday night, 1st July, at the Catholic Schools swimming gala. The gala is an annual event which is held at Sansome Walk, Worcester and is open to all the Catholic schools in Worcestershire.
The swimming team consisted of 16 pupils from Years 4, 5 and 6. They swam individual heats and relays and qualified for the finals of each event. Great effort and determination was shown by all pupils, some of whom had not competed in a swimming competition previously. One child was heard to say, “This is the first medal I have ever won for anything.” There was a great sense of pride amongst the team.
The U11 girls team took gold in the 25m breaststroke, gold in the 25m backstroke and bronze in the 25m front crawl. They also won gold in the front crawl relay and the 1M relay and were awarded the overall trophy for their year group.
The U11 boys won gold in the 25m backstroke, and took silver in both relays.
The U9 girls also won gold in the 25m backstroke. They took silver in both the breast stroke and the front crawl and they managed to take gold in their relay in a very closely fought contest.
The U9 boys won gold in the 25m backstroke, bronze in the 25m front crawl and in their relay.
This year the event was organised by Mrs Helen Annis, who teaches sport at the school. It all ran very smoothly with time officials and place judges, giving up their time voluntarily to support the children. We were also very fortunate to have Rebecca Redfern in attendance. She spoke to all the pupils, signed autographs and awarded the medals. Rebecca has qualified for 2016 Rio Paralympics in the visually impaired category. She holds four British records and has broken the British, European and world record in the 100 breast stroke.
The school is very proud of all who took part and extremely grateful to Mrs Annis for her hard word and enthusiasm for all sport, which inspires the pupils on a daily basis.