Balancing School and Elite Sport – What happens when a student sitting in your classroom isn’t just thinking about their GCSEs, but also dreaming of representing their country at the Olympic Games? For Team GB diver and Olympic bronze medallist Anthony Harding, that was his reality.
Anthony joined me on The School Podcast alongside his mum Louize Harding, a maths teacher with almost 30 years of experience in education, to discuss the journey from being a young student with an extraordinary ambition to standing on an Olympic podium.
What made this conversation particularly interesting wasn’t simply the medal. It was everything that happened before it.
Watch the full interview on YouTube →
Balancing School and Elite Sport
From around Year 9 and Year 10, Anthony’s days looked very different to those of most teenagers. He would arrive at school at around 8am, leave early at approximately 1:30pm and then travel with his dad to Leeds for diving training. Some evenings he wouldn’t arrive home until around 8pm. Then he would wake up and do it again. Anthony openly discusses how difficult it became to balance the importance of his GCSEs with his obsession with becoming one of the best divers in Europe.
That’s an important point for schools. We often talk to young people about having big ambitions, but sometimes those ambitions require a level of commitment that doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional school day. How do we maintain high academic expectations while also supporting a young person pursuing something extraordinary?
The Role Schools Play
Anthony’s mum brings a fascinating perspective because she experienced the journey as both a parent and an educator. Anthony was academically capable and achieved strong GCSE results, but English presented more challenges than maths. His school identified that literacy and comprehension could potentially restrict his performance in other subjects and provided targeted support and additional time. Rather than simply focusing on what Anthony struggled with, they looked at what was preventing him from demonstrating his ability elsewhere. That is something I think we can all learn from. Supporting a student doesn’t have to mean lowering expectations, sometimes it’s about understanding the barrier and finding the right support to allow that student to meet those expectations.
Schools and Parents Need to Work Together
One of the strongest messages from the conversation came from Anthony’s mum. When a school has a young person pursuing elite sport or potentially another significant opportunity outside education, schools need to listen to the parent, carer or person supporting that young person.
As she explained, families living that journey often understand exactly what support is actually required. Schools can offer lots of solutions with the best intentions, but sometimes the most effective starting point is simply asking the family what they need.
That doesn’t mean education becomes less important. It means communication becomes more important.
People See the Medal, Not the Repetition
Anthony eventually became a European champion, Commonwealth champion, world silver medallist and Olympic bronze medallist. But one statistic from our conversation puts those achievements into perspective.
At the highest level, Anthony talked about entering the pool around 1,500 times every month. People see the Olympic medal, they see Team GB, they see the photographs, social media following and success but they don’t see the thousands of repetitions when nobody is watching.
And that lesson goes far beyond sport. Whether you’re trying to achieve a Grade 4, get into university, improve your attendance, build a business or win an Olympic medal, consistency matters.
Anthony described consistency as one of the biggest factors in his career. His family’s approach was equally uncompromising: if they were committing to the journey, missing training simply because something else came up couldn’t become normal.
What Can Schools Learn From Elite Sport?
Not every young person is going to become an Olympian. That’s not the point. What Anthony’s story demonstrates is what can happen when ambition is combined with consistency, sacrifice, family support and an environment willing to help a young person succeed. As educators, we should absolutely protect the importance of education. But we should also remain curious about what our students are trying to achieve outside the school gates. Sometimes the student leaving school early isn’t trying to avoid learning. They might be travelling to Leeds to complete another training session on a journey that eventually takes them to an Olympic podium.
And sometimes our job is to find a way for education and ambition to work together, rather than forcing young people to choose between them.
Watch the full episode of The School Podcast: School vs Sport: The Journey to an Olympic Medal with Anthony Harding & His Teacher Mum.
