Chapel – Sea-Swimming

This week's Chapel was led by Dr Hobbs, Miss Wakeling, and the students who swam to France in June 2022:

Dr Hobbs – People are capable of amazing things. I am continually amazed at what you all achieve every week in school and beyond. You overcome the challenges of your own lives to achieve what you believe is right for you and for others.

The fundamental mission of everyone in a school is to help other people to see that they are capable of more than they believe that they are capable of themselves. Every single day, the purpose of a school is to provide the opportunities and support which people need to realise this and find within themselves the courage and confidence to take on new things and become successful.

When they founded this school on this site 125 years ago, the Lawrence sisters believed that girls were capable of far more than society at the time allowed for. This school was built to challenge the view that women were not capable of independent thought and physical activity.

Penelope Lawrence repeatedly wrote submissions to parliament to convince the government of the day that women were actually capable of physical activity. Amongst other things, the evidence she provided was that girls from Roedean had swum in the sea as far and as quickly as any man. Their belief that girls were capable of more and deserved better is what led them to raise the money to build the tunnel to the sea in 1910 and provide over 100 girls at the time with the opportunity to swim in the sea, publicly challenging all of the bias and preconceived ideas which girls met with every day.

It turns out that the Lawrence sisters were ahead of their time. 17 years ahead in fact. As in 1927, Mercedes Gleitze herself from Brighton became the first woman from Britain to swim across the English channel. The feat gave her film star status and transformed her life and the lives of others. She was sponsored by Rolex and wore their first ever waterproof watch, the Oyster, a brand which still exists today and went on to set up a shelter for homeless men with the money she earned through her swim.

The Lawrence sisters’ foresight and their belief in making things possible for others is the foundation we all walk on in this school today, 125 years later.

Miss Wakeling – It is so easy to look at others’ achievements and feel overwhelmed and in complete awe at how they got there. I know that I do it every day. I listen to the way you play instruments, speak other languages, see you in matches, record your swim or run times and think wow, she is amazing, how on earth did she do that, but me, no I could never do that. Not me. And once you start looking, there are incredible achievements everywhere, Sarah Thomas swam the English Channel four times in a row, that’s an 80-mile swim, in a swimming costume, for 54 hours and it can become very hard for us to image that once upon a time Sarah couldn’t swim! vIt is hard to imagine that once upon a time Sarah was sat in an assembly hall, at school, just like you are now, maybe being told about Gertrude Ederle who at the age of 19 and on her second attempt became the first woman to swim across the channel in 1926 swimming it faster than any man before her!

But what very few people are prepared to tell you is that, despite Sarah Thomas needing a huge amount of physical and mental resilience, despite the sea swimmers having to find selfmotivation that they did not even know they had, the real truth is that Sarah, like, Bella, Amy, Jemima, Rose, Liv and Clara are all just normal girls like all of you. The real secret is that anyone could swim across the channel, achieve their grade 8 piano or became fluent in Italian. It takes a strong desire and a commitment to training. There is no special potion, and no one is born greater than anyone else. So next time you’re in a PE lesson and you’ve missed that shot three times in a row, give yourself some positive self-talk, you can do it, and think once upon a time Sarah Thomas couldn’t swim.