What a fantastic morning we had with Danielle Brown MBE, at Kings Cliffe Primary School, for their Resilience and Adaptability assembly, which we had the pleasure of delivering virtually to the whole school. The magic and the power of Danielle’s sporting story, her life and accomplishments, in and out of the sporting world, were still just as impactful and valuable for the young people at Kings Cliffe Primary to listen to.

Danielle delivered an incredibly inspirational presentation that she made very interactive for the students to listen to during the morning. Danielle talked through her sporting journey to success, and the children were intrigued to learn how Danielle had started taking part in archery and what inspired her to continue. It was very important for the students to learn more about Danielle’s disability, which she has always seen as part of her life and something that has never stopped her getting involved in sport and physical activity, or pursuing a very successful career along side this journey.

The presentation was split into two halves by Danielle, who showed video and images at the start of her presentation for the KS1 students, who then had the chance to ask any questions they wanted halfway through. Some of the best questions from the start of this presentation were;

How does it feel when you win a competition?

How do you feel before a competition?

When did you realise you had a disability?

Which gold medal is your favourite one?

What was the first competition you did?

How old were you when you won your medals?

The children were extremely attentive when listening to Danielle’s responses and got to learn a lot more about how Danielle adapts with her disability and how she has shown extreme resilience in the face of setbacks and challenges. Danielle responded to the children when they asked how she keeps motivated and how she responds to a challenge, by saying, “there is only one direction you can go and that is forwards!”.

When moving through the second half of the presentation with the KS2 students, Danielle focussed on why it is important to be open minded and find ways to solve and rework problems and challenges, when you are faced with them in your future. It was a brilliant message for the children to hear all about how Danielle has used her experience in sport, and in her working life, to develop her own resilience and how the children can do this too in their lives.

Danielle was extremely intrigued to know what the children thought success was and what it means to them in their own lives. Danielle did this interactively and created a word board that recorded some of the answers. It was great to hear that for some of them, happiness was their measure of success, which was incredibly humbling to hear.

As part of the KS2 session, the students had prepared some questions for Danielle, which were extremely well thought out and linked well to their own schools’ ethos and learnings around mental wellbeing. Some of the best questions from this session were;

How do you make such a precise shot?

Who is your inspiration?

What is your biggest motivation?

How do you concentrate?

Do you take part in any other sports?

Year 6 asked some incredibly thought-provoking questions, which we hope helped lots of the other students in the school to listen to as well.

What does it feel like to be under extreme amounts of pressure and how do you remain calm?

Did you ever doubt your ability to achieve your goals and how did you overcome these doubts?

Do you have any physical habits that help you maintain physical and mental healthiness?

Who helps you to prepare and maintain your mental healthiness when you are performing at a high level?

Danielle finished off her presentation with some words of wisdom for the students, after being wowed by the questions she was asked!

“You can’t let the worries interfere, you have to trust yourself, stay present and stay in the moment as much as you can!”

We thoroughly enjoyed working with the staff and students at Kings Cliffe Primary School this morning and we are so pleased that they could benefit from this Virtual Programme with Danielle Brown MBE.

If you are interested in a Programme with Danielle Brown MBE or any of our other Mintridge Ambassadors, or you are interested in a Virtual or Physical Programme with one of our team of inspirational Ambassadors, then please get in touch via the Mintridge website at www.mintridgefoundation.org.uk or with Katie at katie@mintridge.org.uk

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