Over the past 2 weeks students from H.I.S. have taken part in the ‘Heidelberger Stadtschulmeisterschaften Schwimmen’. This is an annual swimming competition held for the city’s schools at the Olympiastüztpunkt in Neuenheimerfeld.

As our swimming programme has developed over recent years we decided that it was time that H.I.S. students join in the fun and represent the school.

On Tuesday 3^rd December it was the turn of the Primary School students (Grade 1 to Grade 4 in the German state school system). A group of 10 very excited students from Grades 3 and 4 boarded their ‘team’ bus and spent the journey asking questions like:

Where would the competition would be?

Would there be lots of children and schools present?

Would there be ‘big’ kids?

Are the other children fast?

All these questions were soon answered and the students competed in individual events in 25m front crawl and breaststroke (Lieselot of Grade 3 coming away with a bronze medal for her 3^rd place in breaststroke).

Representing the Primary School were Hannah, Lieselot, Ella, Sephora, Alexa, Charlotte, James, Thijs, Philipp and Lucas.

On the following Tuesday it was the turn of our secondary school students (including Grade 5). The group was a bit more reserved, but no less excited about the event. Students swam individual 50m freestyle events (any stroke) and this time we also entered teams into the relays. Carolin of Grade 10 was the fastest girl in Heidelberg, not only for her age, but overall and came away with a gold medal. The relays brought further medals and the girls (2006-2009) placed third in their event, winning bronze medals.

Representing the Secondary School were Carolin, Elli, Zara, Grace, Caera, Claudia, Molly, Sophia, Charlotte, Maahi, Dóra, Hannah, Charlotte, Ruthie, Adrian, Cy, Trey, Dhruv, Jasper, Thijs and Kallum.

This was a fantastic experience for the participants and everyone was extremely proud of their efforts. Julia and I remember some of these students just starting to swim when they were in Grade 3 and to see them compete in a city-wide competition made us very proud.

After witnessing the development of our Grade 3 and  Grade 4 swimmers this year we would like to thank the Franziska van Almsick Foundation for the support with our swimming program. Since the beginning of the school year the students have had weekly swimming lessons and more recently we have also had the services of an additional swimming teaching assistant. The progress the students have made is clear to see. H.I.S. is committed to developing confident swimmers and we look forward to our continued partnership.

We will certainly be at next year’s competition so to any undiscovered swimmers – we will find you!

AR and JE