Truro School Fencing Partnership Breaks British Record

Published on isbi School News dated Wednesday 4th of March 2015

The partnership of Truro Fencing Club and Truro School made British fencing history over half term as the Truro team secured gold in all four sabre titles at the Under 17s and Under 20s British Fencing Championships in London.

The four gold medals add to the team's two senior championship medals won towards the end of 2014 by Sophie Williams and former Truro School pupil James Honeybone, a 2012 Olympian.

Truro Fencing Club now holds all six national sabre titles in at every age range, something that no club or school has ever achieved before.

In the boys' events, sixth former Will Deary won the Junior Under 20s event with 5th Year student Jamie Craze being crowned Under 17s Cadet champion, narrowly beating Camden's George Suddards, the second seed, 15-14 in a nail biting final. In the girls' competition, 5th Year Maria Chart beat a tough field of opponents four years her age to be crowned Under 20s Junior champion with Caitlin Maxwell taking the Under 17s title in style the previous day.

Andrew Gordon-Brown, Headmaster at Truro School, said:
'The results from Will, Jamie, Maria and Caitlin are a credit to all the hard work and dedication they have put in over many years here at the School. They have set a fine example to follow for future students and potential fencing scholars, and continue to do so at each and every competition. The Truro School community are very proud of them.'

Fencing has been a part of Truro School's extensive co-curricular programme for a number of years but the success of the partnership stems back a number of years with the seeds to the collaboration planted in 2007 when languages teacher, qualified fencing coach and former national champion Lucy Jupp joined the school, teaming up with Jon Salfield at Truro Fencing Club.

Lucy encouraged the students to take up fencing which resulted in an influx of young members at Truro Fencing Club. Together they have worked to bring an ambitious, professional and highly successful performance programme to Truro, tapping into the world class coaches already working at the club. The partnership was finally cemented in 2014 when Truro Fencing Club relocated away from its training base at Newham to operate on the Truro School premises.

Mrs Jupp said:
'The collaboration between the school and the fencing club has worked exceptionally well over the last decade, the record breaking results at the British Championships highlight that. By being on site here at Truro School we have the advantage of being able to provide students with all the training they need to compete at international standard whilst supporting them academically.'

At present, the students at Truro Fencing Club are currently competing in the European Circuit event in Maribor, Slovenia, a long-stay event that runs until 6 March. A further four students have already been selected to travel to Uzbekistan in April, having qualified for the Under 17 and Under 20 World Championships.

Mrs Jupp continued:
'It is essential for their fencing and academic success that they are all provided with distance learning support through electronic tablets and ebooks. This allows them to communicate with teachers and submit work whilst away to ensure that they keep up with their studies. Training over four hours per day means that the fencers also need to eat every few hours so an integrated nutritional programme allows them to stay fuelled for their lessons and fencing training.'

After the record-breaking performances at the British Fencing Championships, the Junior and Cadet members of the team are relishing the prospect of joining James Honeybone and Sir Ben Ainslie on the schools list of famous Olympians, aiming to compete at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games.