Mansfield super-swimmer Rebecca Adlington visits town school as part of careers week

Rebecca is among a series of people – alongside a bank manager, a firefighter, computing software developer and astronomy expert from Sherwood Observatory – visiting Heatherley Primary School, Heatherley Drive, Forest Town, to talk to pupils during its careers week.

Year 5/6 teacher Phoebe Abbott said: “Becky came in to talk to our whole school about water safety, the Olympics and careers in athletics.

"She came in mostly for our Year 5/6 careers week, offering children the opportunity to hear from several experts in their career.

“We’ve tried to include a lot of women who are working in roles you wouldn’t normally associate with women, such as female engineers and firefighters, as we have a lot of strong-minded girls in the school and we wanted to inspire them with some female role models.”

Former The Brunts School pupil Rebecca won gold in the 400-metres freestyle and 800m freestyle at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, and then bronze in the same events in London four years later.

Lee Harrison, deputy headteacher, said: “I was very excited for the school.

“There has been a range of questions from the children to the visitors and we have had a lot of activities surrounding pathways, qualifications and how hard they have to work.

“Rebecca spoke to the children about how she got into swimming, what she found difficult and how hard she has had to work to get where she is today.

“She was very inspiring.”