S. Anselm's Swim the English Channel

The target: To Swim the English Channel

43,506 metres
2175 lengths
59 pupils
43 kilometres
27 miles
1 afternoon

On Thursday 9th February 59 S. Anselm’s pupils set out on a challenge, to swim as many lengths as possible within their allotted time slot, with the ultimate aim of crossing the 27 mile stretch of water between Dover and Calais. The Challenge initially started out in the Swim Club, which was originally set up to raise standards and give opportunity to all of our budding swimmers at S. Anselm’s. Swimming the Channel gave each swimmer a target and a purpose to their intensive training. However, such was the positive response from some of the other pupils the event became bigger and better.

The challenge started at 1350 hours, during which time the pupils would usually take part in an extras programme, which consists of 70 different extras throughout the year ranging from golf to rock band and skiing to horse riding. The afternoon was started by Great Britain Triathlete Di Lee, who teaches all swimming and coaches the swim squad at S. Anselm’s.

Split into five different time slots the pupils set on their way to achieving their goal. Throughout the afternoon pupils were diving in eager to add to the overall total. With some fantastic support from parents, staff and competing pupils alike, the total started to build quickly. Within the first hour the pupils had reached 940 lengths in total equating to 11.68 miles. As the afternoon progressed and more bodies took to the water, the title of “Most Lengths Swam” started to change hands as the competition rose.

Head Boy, Nick P, was the first to set a courageous 200 length benchmark, but as the afternoon really started to heat up the whiteboard was becoming ever fuller with the names of those who had reached 50, 75, 100, 150, 200 and even 250 lengths. In total there were twelve who reached the Over 50 lengths mark, seven Over 75, twenty-five reached their Century, two reached 150, four reached the Double Century mark and 12 year old Clare T finished on a staggering 250 lengths to take gold.

Headmaster Simon Northcott was enthused and had these words to say:

“I was astounded at the personal commitment shown by the pupils and the sense of achievement they had on exit from the pool. To have Year 3 pupils swimming between 50 and 100 lengths and the senior pupils swimming up to 250 lengths – which is 240 more than I could do – is an indication of the fantastic extra-curricular programme we run here at S. Anselm’s.”

This was a staggering achievement and having set out to swim the English Channel, the pupils actually swam a total of 5595 lengths equating to 69.53 miles and actually comfortably swimming the Channel, from Dover to Calais, two and a half times. In actual fact the pupils at S. Anselm’s Prep School swam between mainland Alaska and Russia across the Bering Straits, approximately 53 miles.