PUPILS at Westbury Junior School recently enjoyed an inspiring talk from Paralympian, Stephanie Millward MBE, where she was spreading her message to ‘always believe in yourself.’
Stephanie spoke to the whole school about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis as a teenager and, despite the challenges she faced, working hard to achieve her dream of winning an Olympic gold medal in swimming. Her visit took place as part of the school’s work on disability awareness.
The local Paralympian, who has won 10 Olympic medals, including 2 gold medals at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio, said, “I like children to believe that anything is possible if they believe in themselves and that all their dreams can come true. My story is all about a dream. I had a dream many years ago, and I made it come true despite many hurdles that got in my way. I kept on believing, kept on dreaming, and kept on knowing that I could do it. I hope that everyone else has that same belief and can achieve whatever they want to achieve.”
One pupil, Alex aged 10, said he was inspired by Stephanie’s talk. He said, “I’ve always has this dream to be a famous sports person. My favourite sport is basketball; it is hard to do but I think with a little perseverance you can do whatever you want to do in life. Stephanie made me think whatever you do, if you win or lose, you can always try again.”
The school’s headteacher Hannah Duffy said, “It’s really important for us to give our children as many opportunities to meet visitors and have guests into the school. As part of our disability awareness theme running this term, we’ve had assemblies on autism and had children with diabetes talk about how they manage their medical conditions. Stephanie’s visit fitted in really nicely. It was a really inspirational talk and the message that Stephanie delivered about our children being able to do anything they want was really powerful.”
