Performance Swimming at Plymouth College

Swim Strive Succeed

WHERE EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Plymouth College is a HMC independent day and boarding school for boys and girls aged 3 to 18.

PLYMOUTH COLLEGE AT A GLANCE

We are based in the very heart of Plymouth, known as Britain’s Ocean City, just a few minutes away from some of the world’s best coastline to the south and the beautiful countryside of Dartmoor National Park to the north. Furthermore, we have access to all the wonderful cultural and leisure facilities one might expect of a thriving city, including a wide variety of restaurants, cinemas, theatres, museums and sporting facilities. Indeed, Plymouth has been named in Conde Nast Traveller as one of the world’s top 3-holiday destinations for 2020.

AN EXCELLENT EDUCATION

We have been providing an excellent education to pupils from Plymouth, all over the UK and around the world since we were founded in 1877. Indeed, our most recent ISI inspection concluded that the quality of our education provision was excellent in every respect. Our original school motto is ‘Dat Deus Incrementum’ – God Gives The Increase. Our contemporary interpretation of this is ‘Plymouth College:Where Everything Is Possible’, reflecting our positive, can-do, growth mindset and our holistic educational ethos.

• Small Class Sizes

• Bespoke Teaching

• Leading Pastoral Care

• Over 60 Co-Curricular Activities

• Pupils from Over 30 Countries

• Leaders in Performance Sport - Producing Olympic Athletes

Pupils are at the heart of all we do and we provide a holistic education that inspires excellence and empowers pupils to believe that everything is possible. We welcome students from all over the world looking for a British boarding school education, plus flexible boarding options for families living a little closer. We have a unique community of pupils who form lifelong friendships in a safe environment that values their wellbeing, happiness and personal development as much as their academic performance. Small class sizes enable our talented teachers to deliver bespoke learning to each and every pupil.We maintain the best performance scores in the city and some of the highest in Devon and Cornwall, meaning our pupils exceed their potential and achieve excellent exam results. Pupils progress to Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group and world-leading universities. Ultimately, our ambition is for our pupils to emerge from Plymouth College, with not just fantastic exam results but, as rounded, grounded, happy and confident young people.

PERFORMANCE SWIMMING

Over the last decade, Plymouth College has carved itself a reputation as being a world-leading school for swimming whilst maintaining an environment where all pupils can achieve in the classroom as well as the pool.

As one of Great Britain’s top swimming schools, home to National, Commonwealth, European, Olympic and World champions, it is no surprise that swimmers come to Plymouth College from all over the world. We offer a highly-acclaimed programme which has been designed to work hand-in-glove with the school’s high academic standards and ambitions. As a boarder or day pupil, the school allows young athletes to effectively balance their academic and swimming schedules, supported by outstanding pastoral care, enabling them to flourish both in the pool and in the classroom. As well as our Olympic and World titles, we have had gold medallists at every major international competition at both senior and junior levels. Many records have been broken along the way including more than 100 British and English records. In addition, our athletes have broken national records across more than 30 different nations from around the world. Our swimmers are regularly selected for Great Britain, as well as for overseas and home nations swim teams including Singapore, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, St Lucia, Antigua and Bermuda. The number of our athletes with international experience is now in excess of 70.

PLYMOUTH SWIMMING LEANDER

“The partnership between Plymouth College and Plymouth Leander enables us to develop young children into highly educated human beings. They learn and develop values that will benefit them for the rest of their lives and will strongly contribute to them becoming well-rounded young people.”

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS

Plymouth College has a proud partnership with Plymouth Leander, one of the top swimming clubs in the UK, which started in 2001. The school offered use of its superb indoor pool and so the succesful combination began.

Plymouth College also provide the swimming club with top level coaching as the school’s Director and Deputy Director of Swimming are both involved in shaping the club’s training.

The partnership is mutually beneficial; when Plymouth Leander moved to the Plymouth Life Centre, taking advantage of a superb 50 metre pool and its enviable diving facilities, Plymouth College athletes also benefitted from the enhanced training opportunities that the Life Centre now provides.

WORLD CLASS COACHING

The programme is led by internationally respected Director of Swimming, Robin Armayan, a European Gold medal coach, who has also served as Coach for the Great Britain World Junior swim team.

Robin has extensive coaching experience in France, Australia and Great Britain, upon which he bases his multi-cultural approach putting the individual at the centre of his high-performance pathway.

He started in South West France, in 2003, where he coached age group swimmers. In 2006 he left France and headed to Australia where he not only learnt English but also from some of the best swimming coaches in the world and a different approach to coaching. In 2008 he came to the UK where he became Head Coach of Poole Swimming Club and took the club from occasional regional representation to be a major player on the UK swimming scene with no less than 40 regional qualifiers and 18 national qualifiers in just 3 years. We welcomed Robin to Plymouth College in 2014. He was also selected as coach for Team GB for the 2015 World Junior Championships. In 2016 he became the Director of Swimming.

The Deputy Director of Swimming is Roberto Pavoni, a former GB Olympic swimmer, who joined Plymouth College after a successful period at the helm of Loughborough Town Swimming Club. Roberto also spent some time learning from the country’s top coaches at the Great Britain National Performance Centre. He is also one of the team coaches for the Swim England National Junior Squad.

“I remember when I first saw Plymouth College/Leander athletes warming up in the pool in 2009, how impressed

I was at the quality of the swimmers, their professionalism and focus towards performance. I never thought that 7 years later I would be appointed as their Director of Swimming.”

“Due to swimming having a high-volume training week, it is important to not overtrain our athletes. Our S&C programme is tailored around swimming training. For example, if an athlete has just had a heavy kick set, we would reduce the load on the legs in the S&C session.”

STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

Our strength and conditioning programme, led by a UKSCA accredited coach, is an intrinsic part of our coaching philosophy and is exemplary in both content and innovativeness.

First and foremost, with any athlete comes the mastery of fundamental movement patterns. Ensuring that an individual can control their body weight through various movement patterns is key to providing a strong athletic base. Starting with our junior athletes, working on these movement skills, a solid foundation is set for their future athletic ability to move onto advanced training methods such as Olympic lifts, plyometrics, resistance training and others. We also utilise gymnastics, calisthenics, yoga and animal flows into our program throughout all stages of development.

Our athletes here at Plymouth College have the opportunity to use their private study sessions to complete their S&C sessions. This off-sets time in the evening after training to catch up on work, have some down-time and recover. The S&C sessions are tailored around the individual’s competition calendar with sessions becoming more specific to their events the closer we get to competition week. Regular testing is performed to track our athlete’s performance improvements over time. These tests include, movement, range of motion, strength, power and endurance measures.

The modern, open plan and well-equipped S & C gym is the main site of the athletes training. At the start of the sessions the athletes will go through a movement preparation to warm up the joints and muscles. This gradually increases in intensity preparing them to start the main set. Depending what phase of the training cycle they are in, they then move onto the main set which usually contains some weighted compound movements, position/stroke specific exercises and finish with some pillar conditioning. 10 minutes of gymnastics and calisthenics is also recommended at any point during the session. Every session is coached by one our S&C team who have a wealth of experience in youth S&C and swimming.

Our lead S&C coach will travel away with the team to major competitions. Pre-race routines form a large part of a successful race week and the S&C department prepare race timelines and carry our warm-ups and priming ready for athletes to race. Lastly, all of the S&C team live and work in the boarding house. Positive, professional relationships and understanding is built up with the athletes in our care and we help to develop the pupil, athlete and the young person holistically at Plymouth College.

ACADEMIC SUPPORT

Being part of the performance swimming team doesn’t mean that a pupil’s academic life takes a back seat. Having been the educational home for champions stretching back decades, we have extensive experience being able to support pupils in managing their academic life in combination with their rigorous training schedules.

Into every athlete’s timetable, we build flexibility so that we can ensure pupils are able to achieve their best in the classroom as well as the pool. We do our best to enable outstanding progress, both in the pool and in the classroom and we understand that the balance must be struck between the two.

Most importantly, communication between swimming staff and teaching staff is exemplary. We work together as a team to ensure our young people make great progress. Our teachers understand the pressures of the swim programme and adjust their teaching as appropriate, making the support for the swimming scholars as bespoke as possible. Teachers are informed of absence due to competitions in advance and plan work for pupils to do when they are away competing and in a general sense, are flexible with deadlines for homework and classwork.

For those pupils who have the heaviest training commitments, we look in detail at the number of subjects they do, in order to maximise their time in school. It is not uncommon for our swimming scholars to focus on a smaller number of GCSE subjects and then we support them in detail around their Sixth Form study, with them utilising their study periods flexibly to allow them to complete some of their land training sessions in the school day.

In a nutshell, the timetable both academically and in the pool is fixed, but around this is a huge amount of flexibility to gain productive academic time - owing to the bespoke nature of our teaching and learning, underpinned by the ethos of making things work. Academically, our swimming scholars use their organised and driven nature learnt from a rigorous training schedule and adapt this to their academic studies to great success.

WELL-BEING

The physical health of all our pupils, but in particular of our elite athletes, is paramount. But it’s not just keeping our pupils physically healthy - mental and emotional wellbeing are key to ensuring Plymouth College is producing well-rounded young men and women.

With a fully qualified medical team on-site in our Health Centre plus, exemplary and formalised links with a physiotherapist, pupils are cared for at the highest level. The medical team regularly communicate with the full coaching team to notify of any injuries/illness to an athlete. Our multifaceted team, including our on site Strength and Conditioning team, as well as the Physio will then discuss how to manage the condition by reducing the training load or varying the style of training, including a detailed plan on ‘return to competition’ to enable athletes to safely get back to their peak fitness.

If an athlete is unable to perform their pool-based sessions for a period of time, then the strength and conditioning team will amend training in the cardiovascular suite or S&C gym to maintain performance levels. The communication between all sports science, coaching, teaching and boarding staff is exemplary and is key to the understanding and development of our athletes at Plymouth College.

On top of this we have a school counsellor who is part of our resident boarding staff as well as access to a registered, experienced sports psychologist available to all athletes within our school community. These sessions are designed to help with managing stress, setting goals and other important psychological concepts.

A HOME FROM HOME

Our renowned swimming programme has global recognition and consequently we welcome athletes to Plymouth College from around the world and therefore the majority of them board. Our recently refurbished boarding houses offer a home from home and our dedicated staff ensure that all boarders needs are met.

College House is a terrace of seven properties on the Ford Park site that provides accommodation for the majority of boarders. The Head of Boarding and his family live in the central residence, which separates the boys’ house (Colson) from the girls’ house (Mannamead). The Head of Boarding is also the Housemaster of Colson House and the girls’ Houseparents live in a flat within Mannamead House.

Crucially when important Championships happen duiring the holiday, our boarding houses remain open and boarding staff continue their care and supervision of our swimmers, as well as ensuring their wellbeing in the run up to such large events. Our swim staff escort them to each competition venue so all swimmers will always have support and chaperones.

The co-educational structure of College House creates a family atmosphere with boys and girls encouraged to socialise together in a variety of ground floor communal rooms. Facilities provided include TV, DVD player, pool table and space for quiet reflection. The boarding offices in Colson and Mannamead houses, which are staffed at key times throughout the day, are hubs for boarders and staff to socialise.

Being on-site means easy access to training facilities such as the school’s own 25m training pool as well as just a short minibus ride to additional facilities. Mealtimes are organised around training schedules.

WORLD CLASS RESULTS

We are rightly proud of everything that our athletes achieve.

Without doubt one of our finest moments was the London 2012 Olympics when 15 year old Ruta Meilutyte won the Gold Medal in 100m breaststroke for her homeland Lithuania. By the time she was 17, the teenager was the first and only swimmer in history to win all junior and senior international swimming championships at least once.

Ben Proud represented Great Britain at the 2013 World Championships then went on to win his first senior medals during his Commonwealth debut in 2014. Just a month later he was part of the Gold Medal winning 4x100m medley relay team at the European Championships. He has continued to be part of Team GB since then, becoming World Champion in 2017 in the 50m Butterfly. Further international medals were won in 2018, becoming European and Commonwealth champion for 50m Freestyle.

Further notable swimming alumni include Calum Jarvis, part of the European Championship winning 4x200m Freestyle Relay Team in 2018, as well as Laura Stephens who is at the beginning of her senior international career with medals in the 2019 British Championships and selection for Team GB at the World Championships in Gwangju.

But we are also proud of the academic success our athletes also achieve; many of our pupils move on to top flight universities such as Loughborough, where they continue their swimming as well as following a range of courses. Likewise, we have have had a number of our former pupils benefit from lucrative scholarships to some prestigious US swimming colleges. Some choose to pursue their higher education at Plymouth University so they can continue to train with Plymouth Leander.

HOW TO JOIN US

Plymouth College is committed to providing a first class education to the best athletes in the world.

To find out how we can help your son or daughter achieve at the highest level, both in the classroom as well as the pool, then don’t hestiate to get in touch.

Please contact our admissions team via email, admissions@plymouthcollege.com or you can call them on +44 (0)1752 505115.

Our admissions team will guide you through the entire admissions process and tell you more about entry requirements as well as financial assistance in the shape of our our Swimming Scholarships as well as means-tested bursaries.