An Early Morning Swim

Last month six pupils and one member of staff set their alarm clocks before dawn to take part in the challenging, open water, Henley Classic Swim. The race is a 2.1km swim upstream in the River Thames along the same Henley Royal Regatta course that the College’s 1st VII rowers raced on just days ago!   

The team competing from the College was made up of Year 12 students, T Wilkinson, P Kenny and J Powell and Year 9 pupils, L Byca, N Floyd and F Fox and Everett Housemaster, Tom Armstrong. Despite all but one pupil having never done this race or anything similar before, they all completed the swim embracing the Headmaster’s mantra that ‘Challenge Creates Character’! P Kenny was also placed in the top 15 in the Junior category in a time of 39.06 minutes, a brilliant achievement.

Everett Housemaster, Tom Armstrong who led the team commented: “I am incredibly proud because the event represents a massive challenge and it will be something that these boys will remember (hopefully fondly!) in the years to come.”

The boys were eager to undertake the challenge to raise funds to support Everett House’s GAP Africa pledge. Like many of the Houses, Everett has been raising funds for GAP Africa over the last few years, in order to pay the school fees of a young student to attend school in Kenya. Pupils will also be proud knowing they were the first Shiplake College team (of hopefully many!) to compete in The Schools’ Cup at the Henley Classic Swim.

We would like to congratulate the following pupils who took part in the event for their endeavour.