AN OLYMPIC medal winner put pupils through their paces during a visit to Chickerell Primary School.

Two hundred metre specialist Christian Malcolm took the children through different exercises as part of the Super Schools fundraising initiative.

He was asked to visit the school by headteacher Jody Harris as part of her drive to encourage more physical activity among pupils.

The former physical education teacher is in the first year of her headship at the school, which has a number of after school sports clubs.

Mr Malcolm took around 360 pupils from all year groups through traditional fitness exercises including sit-ups, star jumps, push-ups and leg drives.

Mrs Harris said: “The children were very much in awe of somebody famous coming to their school because being in a rural area of the country it’s very rare something like that happens.

“Christian’s message to the children was to never give up no matter what and always be resilient and strive to do your best and that’s actually the message we are trying to encourage in our children at the moment.

“Being an ex-PE teacher before becoming a headteacher I very much want children to get engaged in sports and encourage them to attend at least one of the after school clubs we run.

“So my thought was if we had somebody here who was a sports star talking about how he started at eight-years-old to reach where he is now it would really inspire the children.”

Youngsters were sponsored to take part in the event with 60 per cent of the money going to the school and 40 per cent to help young athletes’ training.

The school has raised just under £1,000 so far but is hoping to double that total.

The money will go towards information, communication and technology equipment including computers and data projectors.

The school’s sports and active lifestyle programme now has clubs for every level of fitness from football and sports for fun clubs to squad level gymnastics.

Mrs Harris said: “This term we are actually able to offer 18 hours of activities in our extra curricular clubs so we are catering for almost every interest at the moment.

“I want to make sure children spend as much time in extra curricular activities instead of sitting in front of their games consoles or televisions.”

HEADTEACHER JODY HARRIS

Headteacher Jody Harris took a degree in Physical Education and French at Exeter University.

The athletics and team sports enthusiast became a teacher because she wanted to instil a level of competiveness and love of sporting activities in children.

She began her career at St Osmund’s Middle School in Dorchester as a PE teacher in 1995.

ETHAN PURNELL, 10: “I like school because it is enjoyable and fun. The different lessons and topics we do are all very interesting, especially the space one and I quite like history. I’d like to be an astronaut or a historian when I’m older.”

BEN CARTER, 10: “I like being able to do different stuff and meeting famous people. I like learning about history and science stuff but not maths because it’s quite confusing. I look forward to PE the most. I’d like to play football or be a famous BMXer when I’m older.”

JASMINE DIBBEN, 10: “I like maths because it’s confusing so I get to find out different things and work things out.

I like doing ball skills and doing hockey and tag rugby at after school clubs. I want to do something in the zoo when I’m older because I like dealing with animals because I’ve got a pony.”

Chickerell PRIMARY SCHOOL

The school and Chickadees Pre School are set in the heart of the Chickerell community.

The school was opened in 1995 after the old building was demolished to make way for houses. It has since had three extensions to accommodate an increase in pupils. There are classes from foundation through to Year 6, with more than 30 staff looking after and teaching a total of 360 children aged from three to 11 years old.

The children’s education is complimented by a wide range of extra-curricular activities, inter-school sports activities and clubs.