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Sporting icon gets message across to pupils
by Hayley Robinson – Medway Messenger 7 Nov 2008
Children at a Medway school had a new PE teacher for a day – double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes.
Lucky youngsters aged eight to 10 at Featherby Junior School in Gillingham enjoyed coaching sessions with the star athlete.
Dame Kelly made her way to the school after visiting B&Q in Gillingham where she met staff and customers as part of her role as ambassador for Team B&Q – a programme to support Britain’s Olympic hopefuls in partnership with the British Olympic Association.
Fitness
Dame Kelly said: “There’s so many things you can get from sport. First of all though it should be enjoyable and fun.
“Sport has the ability to cross all boundaries of life. Health and fitness benefits are one of the main reasons why you want to get children involved in sport and primary schools are obviously the best place to do that.
“But they also learn other skills like leadership, raising their self esteem, confidence, communication.
“There’s so many different aspects that sport can bring. That’s why it’s really important that children are involved with it from an early age. They then take those skills through the transition to senior school and when they go out into the big wide world.
“It’s also been proved that after taking part in sport there’s more attainment in class, they (the pupils) are more willing to learn, they achieve things themselves and find qualities they didn’t even know they had.”
Head teacher Paul Green said: “Everybody wanted a piece of Kelly so I had to organise the day so everyone got to speak to her. Even teachers wanted autographs and pictures taken with her. She really stimulated the environment of the school.
“Kelly is such an icon, particularly for the girls. One of the problems with this country is we lose so many ladies from sport at about 14 years old.
“What we’re trying to do is get them to continue with sport past that age.”
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