PUPILS at Milverton Primary School were excited to welcome Paralympian David Hill when he visited during their annual School Games Day.

Hill is a two-times Paralympian in swimming and triathlon, and was GB’s youngest athlete at the age of 15 at the Athens 2004 Paralympics. He was a top ten finisher in the 2016 Rio Paralympics and is a World and European Medallist and British Champion.

Milverton Primary School holds an annual School Games Day, in addition to the usual Sports Day, as it gives pupils an opportunity to take part in lots of different sports and team activities. It is organised between the school and its partner, Premier Sports. After a day of competing in a wide variety of activities such as rounders, dodgeball and Tae-kwon-do, the children enjoyed an inspiring assembly with David Hill.

He talked about his determination to succeed in his chosen sport, despite being born with no left forearm. He described how he had to compete in at least 20 events to achieve the medals he had won and he demonstrated to the children how he used his prosthetic arm for competing in triathlon.

Headteacher Richard Stead said: “David Hill’s visit was inspirational for the whole school. He engaged the children and helped them to understand the importance of persevering to achieve your goals.

“My favourite thing David said was that he felt there was nothing he could not do, he just needs to find different ways to enable him to achieve it. Of course, the children also loved the opportunity to see and touch all his hard-earned medals”.