Old Prestfeldians

David is the Deputy Head of Pastoral and Wellbeing at Brambletye School in East Grinstead. He is also an Inspector with the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), which is the body responsible for assessing the extent to which Independent Schools are complying with the Statutory Independent School Standards and reporting on this to the Department for Education.

David attended Prestfelde from 1993 to 1997, having moved here from a local state primary school. Like most people who choose to privately educate their children, David recalls that his parents had to work hard and long hours to be able to send him here. They did this, he says, because they wanted to give him the opportunity to progress academically in small class sizes, and to benefit from an all-round holistic education with an emphasis on sport.

While here, David was a day boy and held the position of Prefect and Head of Sport for the Saxons.  He recalls the persistent suggestion of Mr Marris that he might like to consider becoming a boarder in Beckbury – a proposal that he flatly refused to entertain due to his attachment to home!

Mr Trimby was the Headmaster when David first started and was then subsequently succeeded by Mr Bridgeland.

As someone who loved school, David enjoyed all subjects, but he has particularly fond memories of science with Mr Bell, Latin with Mr Gillespie, and sport with Mr Williams and Mr Banks.  

As David says:

“Sport played a huge role in my time at Prestfelde and I still remember doing the double vs Packwood in the 2nds rugby and winning the Ellesmere 6-a-side football with Mr Baskerville. In fact, I still have my trophy for this!”

After leaving Prestfelde, David went on to study at Shrewsbury School, where he was a day boy in Radbrook House. He then took a gap year in New Zealand, where he worked in the PE department at Tauranga Boys’ College and played cricket for the school. He also represented the district – the Bay of Plenty – in cricket at the U19 level.

Upon returning to the UK, David studied Medical Imaging at Liverpool University and then moved to Edge Hill to complete his PGCE in Secondary Science. He has worked in the education sector since 2009, holding a variety of posts, from Teacher of Science and Head of Year, to Head of Boarding and now the Deputy Head of Pastoral and Wellbeing at Brambletye.

So how does David look back at his time at Prestfelde all these years later?

“With great fondness”, David says:

“I really enjoyed my time at the school and because of this Prestfelde will always be somewhere that is incredibly special to me. It was a place that allowed me to develop my confidence and to explore a whole range of academic and extracurricular opportunities that have taken me to so many different places in my life. The skills that I learnt have been invaluable in helping me as I have got older, and it is because of the overwhelmingly positive experience I had at Prestfelde that I now work in a prep school myself.”

“I know that there are many parents who will be wondering whether investing in a prep school education is really worth it, especially when faced with the addition of VAT to private school fees, and what I would say to them is ‘yes, it really is’, because I know first-hand how crucial prep schools are in helping children to grow in confidence, to flourish and to reach their true potential.”

“I am a father to three children myself now, and I have to say, if the possibility allowed then my wife and I would love to send our children to Prestfelde because of the very special school that it is.”

 So, does David keep in touch with any of his former Prestfelde friends?

“Yes, I do,” he says. “In fact, one of my great friends from Prestfelde, Anand Gohil, was the best man at my wedding! And I am really hoping that by joining the Old Prestfeldians Society that I will soon be able to reconnect with lots of other people that I remember fondly from my time as a pupil at the school.”

Thank you for sharing your memories with us, David!

Hugo Ward owns Cucu Creative, a content-marketing agency based in London that works with global brands to help them tell powerful stories through film. He leads a talented team of journalists, filmmakers, animated-graphic designers, editors, producers and audience-engagement specialists to produce content for companies in industries including financial services, cryptocurrency, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications.

Hugo is an accomplished documentary maker, having previously made dozens of programmes for Channel 4’s Dispatches and Unreported World, working in over 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Indonesia. He has also profiled an array of people through film, from the Dalai Lama to Tony Blair. He also launched and grew Economist Films, which as the name suggests is the film division of The Economist.

Hugo attended Prestfelde from 1988 to 1993 and followed in the footsteps of his older brother, James, who left the school the year before Hugo joined, and also his godfather who attended Prestfelde in the 1950s.

Hugo grew up on a farm in Monkhampton, Shropshire, but following the sad death of his father when he was still relatively young, his mother – a physiotherapist who worked all over the county – decided to move the family to Bridgnorth.

When Hugo came to Prestfelde, Mr.Trimby was the Headmaster, and while his memories of our former Head are fond ones, he also recalls him as being a man who ran a very tight ship! As Hugo puts it:

“He instilled a level of discipline at the school that you wouldn’t see today, but that was a good thing because it meant that everyone knew where they stood and, crucially, which teachers should be avoided when they were in a bad mood!”

Reflecting on his time at Prestfelde, Hugo recalls what a happy place it was and how he and his peers felt free to be themselves.

His fondest memories are of the summer term, while boarding at Highfields House: 

“I loved playing cricket outside until dusk and having the freedom to roam the school alongside your best mates. We seemed to pack in so many activities: school plays, choir, lessons, gardening and a full range of after-school clubs. But, for me, drama was the real highlight. I specifically remember a drama class in 2B where I must have impressed Mrs. Partridge, because she seemed to recognise my passion for the stage and from that point onwards I didn’t look back! We had so much fun performing ‘A Little Matter of Murder’, written by Mr. Dyfnault, and ‘ A Little Shop of Horrors’, directed by Mr. Lund. I recall that the DT department even made a man-eating plant for that production!”  

As a keen sportsman, Hugo concedes that he probably did most of his learning on the sports field. As he recalls:

“We had an incredibly talented, unbeaten 1st XI football team. Mr. Trimby didn’t miss the chance to take us on a tour to ‘The South’. Among the schools we played was Ludgrove, where Princes William and Harry were boarding. On the first night staying in one of the dorms, we were caught by surprise when a group of much younger boys invaded carrying pillows. They were led by a little ginger lad: Prince Harry! The next day the Ludgrove Headmaster introduced Prince Harry to Mr. Trimby, who asked the young prince who he’d be supporting. Without dropping a beat, Prince Harry promptly replied “Prestfelde, because they’re a great bunch of lads””.

An active member of the Normans House, Hugo eventually went on to become Head Boy – something that he is still proud of (even at the age of 44) because he was one of the first non-scholars in the school’s history to hold this position.

After leaving Prestfelde, Hugo went on to join Shrewsbury School, where he spent five happy years as a boarder in Severn Hill. After that he was determined to travel and so worked in a car mold factory in Telford and took on as many shifts as he could in local pubs to raise the necessary funds. His long-anticipated trip was to Africa, where he and a close friend from Shrewsbury journeyed overland from Cape Town to Tel Aviv during the course of nine months – although they had to fly over Sudan due to the civil war there at the time. 

After returning from his travels, he studied at Bristol University and after graduation was lucky enough to secure a spot on the BBC News Scholarship Scheme. This led to a range of opportunities, including covering the Athens Olympics while reporting for BBC Radio 5 Live and LBC.

At the time, Hugo’s Australian girlfriend had an opportunity to return home, so he followed her to Sydney and spent three years working for various TV networks as a reporter and as a News Programme Editor for a breakfast show. When he returned to the UK, he finally broke into documentary filmmaking, which was where he had always wanted to end up.

As Hugo explains, his desire to become a documentary maker was formed at an early age:

“At around the age of 12, after watching a lot of Michael Palin travel documentaries, I became determined to pursue a career as a documentary filmmaker and a journalist, and when I returned from Australia I finally realised my dream by landing jobs directing films for a range of broadcasters, including Channel 4, the BBC and Discovery, to name a few.”

So how does Hugo now look back on his time at Prestfelde?

“This is an easy one to answer. Prestfelde gave me a deep-seated confidence and has formed the foundations of everything I have gone on to achieve. Maybe I’m being a bit ‘rose tinted glasses’, but my time at Prestfelde really was one of the happiest of my life. It was, and remains, one of the leading prep schools in the country. It was a place where making mistakes was part of the journey – where you could fail, learn, and grow in confidence, always surrounded by exceptional teachers who you knew had your best interests at heart.”

“The impact Prestfelde has had on my life truly became clear only a few years ago, when I was touring prep schools in Hampshire with my own children. At a time when I needed support the most, the staff at Prestfelde were there for me. They fostered an environment where we were free to be ourselves, and in turn we gained the confidence to always strive for our best. These values became the foundations on which I’ve built my life.”

And does Hugo keep in touch with any of his old school friends?

“Yes, I do stay in touch with a bunch of old friends from Prestfelde”, he says. “In fact, I recently did a 50-mile hike with a group of Old Prestfeldians, scaling 15 of the highest summits along the Welsh border. We had to walk through the night and there was a lot of chat; most notably about the happy memories of our collective time at Prestfelde!”

“To any old boys or girls out there who are not currently members of the Old Prestfeldians Society, I would urge you to sign up as it’s one of the easiest ways that you can help to ensure that the school continues to thrive. I also think it offers a fantastic opportunity to create a powerful network to help Old Prestfeldians for decades to come.”

Thank you to Hugo for sharing such a fascinating insight into his life.

 

Matt is a successful Shropshire-based businessman who attended Prestfelde from 1974 to 1980. He went on to study at Ellesmere College, before embarking on various sales and marketing roles. He was the Managing Director of Ternhill Communications from 1993 to 2002 and then CEO of Pure Telecom from 2006 to 2019. He is now a private investor and the director of Morland Capital Partners and 4M Properties Ltd. 

When Matt was a pupil at Prestfelde it was still an all-boys school, and the Headmaster was the much-loved Mr. Michael Manby. Matt was a proud Viking and some of his fondest memories are of playing house rugby with his fellow teammates under the skillful and enthusiastic direction of his wonderful House Master, the late Ken Houlston. 

For reasons we will come to, Matt very much loved his time as a Prestfeldian – so much so that he and his wife Maria chose to send their own children here: Morgan, who has just completed her business degree at Exeter University and MJ, who has just started studying for his A Levels in business, photography and design technology at Shrewsbury School. Between December 2011 and July 2019, Matt was also one of our school governors and a principal fundraiser.   

Indeed, it was as a result of Matt’s fundraising efforts that we were able to secure sufficient donations from parents and alumni back in 2014 to enable us to demolish the draughty old wooden chapel that used to sit on the far side of the London Road car park, and to replace it with the wonderfully  warm and welcoming Blackburn Chapel and Theatre. 

We also have Matt to thank for the creation of the beautiful Michael Sandford Memorial Garden (now affectionately referred to as the Beckbury Garden by our pupils, due to its proximity to Beckbury House), which was gifted to the school by Matt and Maria in memory of his late father who tragically died while Matt was a pupil here and when he was just ten years old. 

The circumstances of his father Michael’s death were heartbreaking, both for Matt and his family and also for the wider Prestfelde community. 

Michael was a well-respected and leading Midland’s-based architect. He was also a keen yachtsman, so  when a friend asked him if he would sail a new yacht over to France for him, he naturally agreed. He set out on the trip with a crew of four, all of whom were from the Shrewsbury area and one of whom was also a fellow Prestfelde parent. While undertaking the crossing, it appears that the yacht ran into difficulty and was lost at sea, along with all four crew members who disappeared without trace. To this day, nothing of the yacht or crew has ever been found. Matt’s father was just 43 at the time. 

Reflecting on his father’s death, Matt recalls the comfort that he and his family took from the love and support shown to them by Prestfelde and by the wider school community during this devastating period in their lives:  

“When my father died, Prestfelde were simply amazing – they rallied around my family and I to ensure that we felt held and loved during what was an unimaginably difficult time. I felt safe and happy at the school and still remember going to speech day (which at that stage coincided with sports day) and bawling my eyes out as I said goodbye to all my friends and to the staff. My days at Prestfelde really have had a profound impact on me”  

Matt says that it is his fondness for the school, and his memories of the weeks and months that followed his father’s death, that motivated him to create the Michael Sandford Memorial Garden, which he gifted to us as an area to be used for quiet reflection and for outdoor learning:  

“I remember, in the early days after my father’s death, that I would often walk around the school looking for areas where I could be alone to grieve and to process my thoughts. There were lots of places that I used to go to, but no dedicated space where I could just sit and reflect on what had happened and to contemplate things. I thought it was important for the school to have this sort of space – somewhere that pupils, staff and even parents could make use of whenever they need a bit of time out or to be outside among nature.”  

Matt had fabulous support from local suppliers, who donated most of the materials, and special thanks must go to Seb Lupton who provided us with landscape gardening services, and to Lucy Walton who helped to design the overall concept for the garden drawing on her expertise as an award winner garden designer.  It should also be noted that Matt and Maria made a substantial financial donation to help cover the cost of construction works. 

“Given my father’s lifelong love of the sea, I decided that I wanted to give the garden a nautical theme and so I had the great idea of using a ship’s anchor that had been salvaged from the bay at Abersoch to create a visually impressive centre point. This was given to me by the helm of Abersoch RNLI and looks fantastic in situ.”

There was a lot of effort that went in to creating the garden, and it was definitely worthwhile, as our Headmaster, Nick Robinson, explains: 

“Since the garden was gifted to us by Matt and Maria in this amazing philanthropic gesture, it has become a much used and valued resource which every day makes a hugely positive contribution to the general health and wellbeing of our pupils, staff and parents. It is a place that people gravitate towards when they need to have a moment to themselves, or when they simply want to take some time out to sit in relative peace and quiet; and as Matt had hoped, it is also an amazing place for our children to explore as part of their outdoor learning.” 

“Matt is a true Prestfeldian, and we shall always be grateful to him – not just for all that he has already done for us, including the creation of the garden and the new chapel and theatre building, but also everything that he continues to do to show his support. Matt, we salute you – you are a hugely valued part of the Prestfelde community, and we are very lucky to have you.”  

 

Henry Beaver is the CEO of Beaver Bridges Limited, a bridging systems and services company with offices and factories running along the spine of the UK, from Inverness and Glasgow through to Manchester, Wigan, Shrewsbury and Bristol.

With a team of 120 highly skilled designers, engineers, erectors and qualified transporters, Beaver Bridges provides turn-key bridge building solutions to clients throughout the UK and Europe, including government agencies, multinational construction firms, private landowners, forestry companies, farmers, schools and renewable energy providers.

Established in 2016, Beaver Bridges is now recognised as the most prolific bridge building company in the UK and has received an array of awards for its innovative approach and commitment to excellence, including the Best Small Project Award from the Scottish Civil Engineering Contractors Association in 2022 for its work on Lossiemouth East Beach Bridge and Bridge Building Contractor of the Year at the 2024 New Civil Engineer Awards.

As an expert and pioneer in his field, Henry is also a director of the British Constructional Steelwork Association (BCSA) and chair of the Bridgeworks Committee.

Early Years

Henry attended Prestfelde from 1985 to 1990, along with his brothers Tom and Sam. While they were first generation Prestfeldians, the Beaver family’s connection with the school has continued to strengthen over the years as Henry’s cousins, Blake and Stephanine, also went on to join us, as did Henry’s daughters, Annabelle and Mathilda.

Henry was a local boy whose family owned and operated a diversified farming business in South Shropshire. As Henry explains:

“My parents were local farmers who diversified into supporting the agricultural sector with buildings, bridges, bale trailers, demolition, plant and machinery, pipes and precast concrete, and many other similar products.”

“Long before recycling became ‘trendy,’ farmers were repurposing, reusing, and adapting to change of use of material and turning them into something else. Our family business was at the forefront of these endeavors.”   

Memories of Prestfelde

Henry was with us from the ages of 5 to 10, when Mr. Trimby was headmaster. Despite his early age, Henry still recalls his time at Prestfelde with fondness:

“It was still an all-boys school back then, and although I left when I was 10 to join Aberlour House - which was the feeder school for Gordonstoun where I was heading at 13 – I still remember Prestfelde as somewhere that I had fun! I particularly remember autumn time when we would go out for break to find that the grounds staff had raked up all the leaves into big piles, which were ripe for playing in! My friends and I used to love running around pretending to be fighter pilots in the Second World War!

“Prestfelde gave me a good grounding in my education, and I spent a lot of time while I was at school playing sport. Rugby was particularly prolific when I was young, and I remember with fondness how much I enjoyed the local derby with Packwood each year.”

Later Life

After his senior school years spent at Gordonstoun, Henry went on to study Agribusiness at the Royal Agricultural College (as it then was). The premise was to secure supplier and customer contracts for the future.

He then joined the family business and spent the next 16 years developing, growing, changing, and working hard. Then, in 2016, the family demerged the business and Henry decided to set up Beaver Bridges as a standalone company.

Since then, Beaver Bridges have gone from strength to strength and having now firmly established themselves as a leader in the bridging industry in the UK, the company has plans over the next five years to expand operations abroad.

Lasting Impact

So, how does Henry look back on his time at Prestfelde after all these years?

“Prestfelde has a special place in the heart of so many people who have attended the school in their formative years, and I am no different.”

“Prestfelde gave me the building blocks I needed to get to where I am today. All the fundamentals of learning to get through into the next phase of my life were formed at Prestfelde. The school really has helped to shape my life, and I can see now looking at my girls that it has also had an enormous impact on them. They have come all the way through from the ages of 3 to 13 and I would say without a doubt that, like me, they have benefited from all the very best that a private education in a close-knit town can bring!”

“And I would also say what a difference Prestfelde staff, both past and present, have made to the uniqueness of the Prestfelde experience. The faculty is lovely and truly very welcoming. Everyone greets you with a smile and makes time to chat, which really matters.”  

Old Prestfeldians Society

Like many former pupils, Henry has built lasting relationships with members of the Prestfelde community.

“While my children were at Prestfelde it was amazing how many Old Prestfeldians I bumped into – and as we live in Shropshire, these connections have grown and matured over recent years to mean that I now have a super gang of life-long OP friends.”

“People relationships are so important, and so for any former old boys or girls out there who are not yet members of the Old Prestfeldians Society, I would urge you to join as you never know who you will bump into.”  

“And if there are any OPs out there who need a bridge building, you know where I am.”

Katie Thorn is a digital transformation specialist in the adult social care sector and is currently the Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Digital Care Hub, which she helped to found. The Digital Care Hub is a not-for-profit, sector-led organisation which provides free support to social care providers on issues relating to technology and cyber security.

Katie also recently co-convened the Oxford Project on Artificial Intelligence in Social Care with the Institute of Ethics in AI at Oxford University. This has led to the development of the first co-produced ethics framework for the responsible use of Generative AI in Social Care.

Katie sits on the committee of the Old Prestfeldians Society. When asked what prompted her to get involved in the OPS, she jokes that she was ‘volunteered’ by her mum, who is a school governor. In all seriousness though, she says that her real motivation in becoming a committee member was wanting to reconnect with some of her old school friends and to also give something back to the school and to the wider Prestfelde community.

So, what was Katie’s Prestfelde journey like and what has she been up to in the years since she left?

Katie attended Prestfelde from 1997 to 2000 and joined just a year after the school had begun to accept girls. Prior to this she had attended Dorrington Primary School and then Glenealy Junior School in Hong Kong, where her dad worked as a geotechnical engineer.

Her favourite teachers while at Prestfelde were (in no particular order, she is keen to stress!): the headmaster at the time, Mr Bridgland, along with his wife, Yvonne, who Katie says were “just fantastic”, and also Diffy, her French teacher, and the lovely Mrs Partridge (or Mrs P as she was better known). 

Asked what her overriding memories of her school days were, Katie says:

“You may laugh at this, but one of my most vivid memories of being at Prestfelde is of my friends and I having to get changed into our bathing suits behind the pool cover in the swimming pool because the school was still trying to adapt its facilities to cater for having just gone co-ed! I still recall how we would get changed as quickly as we could, and then how we would have to wait there, hiding behind the cover until the boys were ready, before we could come out.”

After leaving Prestfelde, Katie went on to secure an academic scholarship to study at Moreton Hall in Oswestry and then moved to China for a year to learn mandarin and to work as an au pair.

After this, she moved back to the UK to complete a BA in English Literature at UCL, before heading abroad again to Iceland to do an MA in Viking and Medieval Norse Literature at Háskóli Íslands (The University of Iceland).

Asked how, as an adult, Katie now looks back on her time at Prestfelde and the way in which it has shaped her, she says:

“I look back on my time at Prestfelde with great fondness. I remember the school as being somewhere that was fun and a place where I felt completely supported.”

“Prior to joining the school, I had been a very shy child, but with the encouragement of my teachers and the many friends I made, I began to grow in confidence and to develop a belief in myself. The bond I formed with the people I met at the school was really strong and in fact I would say that some of the most genuine and long-lasting friendships that I still have today were formed in the classrooms and on the sports fields while at Prestfelde.”

“It is a very special place and one I am proud to have a continuing association with.”

Thank you to Katie for providing us with an insight into her life at Prestfelde and beyond!

 

 

Simon has worked in the banking sector for most of his career. He began his working life at the Bank of England, working in the Chief Cashier’s Office with Andrew Bailey, now The Bank’s Governor.

In 2000, he moved to Bermuda to become Head of Banking and Trust Regulation for the Bermuda Monetary Authority, where he was responsible for supervising regulatory compliance across the Island’s banks, trust companies and credit unions.

Towards the end of 2005, he moved to Doha to help establish the Qatar Financial Centre and to oversee the supervision of international banking operations for the likes of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and, towards the end of his tenure, some of the country’s largest Islamic banks.

After almost ten years in the Middle East, Simon decided that it was time for a break and so embarked on nearly two years of travelling, and it was while on this epic adventure that he was inspired to launch The Luxury Travel Blog, which is a collection of stories about his passion for travel, hotels and food.

Many of the stories are laugh out loud funny, and they include tales of encounters with a lot of famous people, including Whoopi Goldberg (who Simon met in Claridge’s), Mike Tyson (who he met in the Concorde Lounge at JFK Airport), Gordon Ramsay (who he met in the Doha Four Seasons), Chris Eubank (who he met in the Dorchester) and Cherie Blair (who he met in Bermuda and then again in the Doha Four Seasons).

The Blog (which you can read at www.sifrew.com) is incredibly successful and as a result Simon now acts as brand ambassador for a variety of high-end companies, including Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental and Veuve Clicquot Champagne.

He also continues his work in banking regulation, with his last three roles seeing him act as a banking consultant to the Promontory Financial Group LLC in Cyprus, a banking consultant to the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, and then a board member of Jordan International Bank Plc, based in London, where he was a member of the bank’s risk committee and chaired their audit committee.

Simon now splits his time between his home in London and his mum’s house in Shrewsbury. And it is thanks to his regular trips back to Shropshire that we were able to reconnect with Simon during a recent Old Prestfeldians event held aboard the fantastic Sabrina Boat on the River Severn.

When we asked Simon if he had any funny stories to tell of his time at Prestfelde (1977-1982, with Mr Manby at the helm), he remarked that he thought it was ironic that he had spent six years in Bermuda thoroughly enjoying the fact that he could wear Bermuda shorts to work, when he absolutely hated having to wear his corduroy shorts at school!

Reminiscing about this with three former school friends in the Admiral Benbow Pub in Shrewsbury recently, they all agreed that the horror of the school’s sports shorts also deserved a mention. As Simon puts it “They were so incredibly fuzzy and itchy. Wearing them was so uncomfortable and they made us look as though we had travelled back in time to the 1950s!”

Simon also marveled at how much he now loves swimming – having spent years enjoying the warm seas of the many exotic countries he has visited – and yet he resolutely hated it while at Prestfelde given that, while he was here, the school’s pool was outdoors and therefore typically very cold (especially as the heating kept breaking down).

Perhaps the most ironic thing though is that Simon now travels the globe, sampling food prepared by some of the world’s best chefs, and yet he is still haunted by what he describes as the “absolutely horrendous” food that he used to have to endure while he was at prep school!

As Simon recalls with a smile:

“The most prized role when I was at school was securing the position of being a table monitor. This was nothing to do with the prestige associated with such a position, but rather because table monitors were allowed to serve themselves at lunch time and so you could ensure that you only had to eat a small portion!”

Oh dear Simon....We don’t know what to say, except that a lot has changed in the last 40 years!

The food that we serve at Prestfelde now is of restaurant quality and you are very welcome to come to join us for lunch when you are next in Shrewsbury to sample it for yourself if you would like. Chef Earl and his team are eagerly awaiting your visit and, who knows, maybe we might even make it into your Blog!

You are also very welcome to come for a dip in our lovely, heated indoor pool – and before you ask, no we will not require you to wear corduroy shorts!

Note: This picture shows Simon (centre in the pink shirt) during the ‘Epic Trip’ he took last year to mark 10 years since the launch of the Luxury Travel Blog and to celebrate the Blog now having over 400,000 readers!  

 

Francine Gilmore is currently in her first year at Newcastle University studying Marine Biology, which is a subject she is hugely passionate about. She is also a member of Team GB and the England Squad for target shooting. At present, she is training hard to try to secure a place in the British Olymics Team following her selection onto the Olympics Potential Programme with British Shooting. Fingers crossed we see Francine in action in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles!  

Francine attended Prestfelde from 2011 to 2016 and followed in the footsteps of her father who also attended the school.  She joined us as a day girl in reception and stayed until the end of Year 6, when she moved to Ellesmere on an academic scholarship and then, subsequently, also on a target shooting scholarship.

Asked about what she remembers most from her time at Prestfelde, Francine says:

“There are a lot of things that I recall, but my standout memory is probably of those occasions where, despite being a day girl, I was allowed to stay ‘after hours’ to join in with some of the boarding activities. These occasions, which either involved a themed event or a games night, were always guaranteed to be fun!”

And what about her favourite teachers and subjects?  

“My favourite teacher was Mrs Price, who taught math's”, says Francine.

“She was just so enthusiastic about her subject. In fact, all the teachers at Prestfelde were enthusiastic, which helped to foster my love for a range of subjects – although for me the subjects I loved most were math’s (obviously) and also science, which I found absolutely fascinating – hence my chosen degree at university!”

“I also really enjoyed team sports and particularly lacrosse and netball.”

So, apart from a long-life love of science, what else does Francine believe she got out of her time at Prestfelde?

“Prestfelde is the first place where I made lasting friendships, and it is testament to the strength of those friendships that I still speak to and meet up with some of my former Prestfelde friends even now.”

“Prestfelde is also the place where I grew up as a child and where I was supported to believe in myself and to grow in confidence.”

“I really enjoyed my time at the school and that is why I elected to join the Old Prestfeldians Society, as it’s a great way of catching up with other former pupils and members of the wider Prestfelde community. My dad is also an OPS member, so when we attend Old Prestfeldians events it really is a family affair!”

Looking to the future, Francine says that as well as hopefully securing a place in Tean GB for the next Olympic games, she also hopes to do some travelling and tap into the OPS network as she begins to build a career for herself.

Thank you to Francine for sharing her memories of her time at Prestfelde, and good luck in the run up to the Olympics in 2028!