Competitive club swimmers from Woodham Sports Academy took part in the English Schools Swimming Association North East Trials recently. The event was held at Durham and hosted schools from the North East of England to compete in medley and freestyle relays. The squad included year 7 & 8 girls, and year 9 & 10 boys. Woodham always had a strong swimming tradition with excellent links to Sedgefield 75.
Working with the academy is Heather Brewster from 75. The event was a huge success for Woodham students Callum Cook, Ben Stephenson, Lyndon Hall and Flynn Leybounre who swam the 3rd fast time in the junior boys medley relay. The time posted will hopefully be enough to take them to National Finals in Crystal Palace London once all ESSA regional trials have been completed, as the best 16 times in the country compete.
This is another indication of the success of the Sports Academy, where there is now over 40 swimmers. Mr Clough Director of Woodham Sport Academy said “the recent ESSA swimming gala indicated the strength of talent at Woodham Since the launch of the Academy school sport has grown immensely with 268 students involved. We have students who regularly compete at district, regional, national and international level; it is fantastic to work with extremely talented students”.
This is just one of the exciting opportunities available to Woodham students. We feel very lucky to have a school pool in such good condition and utilise the facility to the full. All students in Key Stage 3 in Woodham have at least 1 unit of swimming throughout the year where they will focus on competitive swimming strokes, water confidence activities, lifesaving, personal survival and water polo.
Outside of school time the pool is used for Sports Academy swimming and water polo practices. However it is also an opportunity for students to access these activities with qualified, experienced coaches free of charge.
