On Thursday 29 June, the College will come together to celebrate the academic year and all its achievements. Year 13 will prepare to move on to new adventures and paths, and the Shiplake community will wish them all the best in their future endeavours. Parents, pupils, staff and governors are warmly invited to celebrate this momentous occasion with the annual Prize Giving ceremony.
The event will include awards being given out for a variety of individual successes, from across the 2016-2017 academic year. Each year, the College welcomes a Guest of Honour to deliver a motivating and unique address to the Shiplake community. This year, we are delighted to announce that we will be joined by inspirational adventurer, fundraiser and author Jamie McDonald.
Jamie’s slogan is ‘anyone can be a superhero’, and is a sentiment by which he absolutely lives. He spent the first nine years of his life in and out of hospital with a rare spinal condition, known as syringomyelia, as well as a weak immune system and epilepsy. By the age of nine his symptoms started to ease, following months of treatment at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, and Jamie’s own efforts to be more active.
Following this, Jamie turned his efforts to fundraising for the hospitals which helped him to overcome so much. He has since cycled from Bangkok to Gloucester, (14,000 miles), broken the Guinness World Record for the longest time spent marathon static cycling (currently holds this at 268 hours, 32 minutes and 44 seconds), ran 5,000 miles from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast across Canada, founding the charity the Superhero Foundation, and managed to find the time to write a book about his life: Adventureman: Anyone Can Be a Superhero. He has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charities across the globe, and wants to prove that anyone can be a superhero.
Jamie has won a number of awards, as well as having a host of fans and followers, who credit him with being ‘an inspiring individual’ and ‘a true superhero’. We are confident that he will bring a fantastic motivational message to the Shiplake community, and look forward to welcoming him.
The timings for the event are as follows:
- 10.45am: Arrival on Front Field. Guests are invited to take their seats in the Prize Giving marquee
- 11.00am: Prize Giving ceremony commences
- 12.00pm: Canapé lunch and drinks reception on the Front Field
- 2.00pm: Event ends
Parents and guardians are not required to RSVP for this event. We once again look forward to seeing the marquee full to capacity to celebrate another superb year at Shiplake College.