The Ellesmere Swimming Academy caters for students from Year 5 to Year 13 and combines sport and academic studies in unison, allowing for a disciplined approach to manage the demands and expectations of both areas.
The comprehensive structure caters for all athletes from county right through to international level, whilst offering access to the facilities and our specialised performance swimming coaches.
Our Swimming Academy Coaching Team is led by our Head Coach Guy Worrow, supported by Performance Swimming Coaches Danny Proffitt and Mikey Hire. We are also fortunate to have Strength and Conditioning Coach, Darren Ruff working with us throughout the week to ensure the delivery of the gym programme complements the swimming training and helps our athletes achieve their specific goals.
The approach and attention to detail across the programme has enabled athletes in their time at Ellesmere College Swimming Academy (formally Titans), achieve World Senior Medals, International Junior Medals, British Age Group Records, National Medals and many more.
Whilst we are extremely proud of the fantastic achievements, we have had at Ellesmere College Swimming Academy, the programme is and will continue to be centred around our athletes, supporting them in achieving their individual goals, no matter how big or small.
Vision Statement:
To be the leading independent school swim programme in the country, recognised for our athlete centric approach.
Mission Statements:
· To create a culture and environment that encourages high performance training and education.
· To treat each student athlete as an individual, ensuring they have the necessary support and guidance to achieve their goals.
· To build a community of student athletes that support, develop and push one another.
· To continue to develop our student athlete's enjoyment and love for swimming.
· To provide student athletes with life skills that will enable them to be successful both in and out of the pool.
Values:
Respect – Treat everyone respectfully and with the utmost integrity
Commitment –Be prepared to work hard both in and out of the pool (every lesson, every session, every race)
Trust – Have belief in the process and in your Coaches
Accountability – Own your mistakes and learn how to improve next time
Teamwork – Support, guide and push one another to be better
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Guy Worrow is an experienced Level 3 Swim Coach with over 15 years of coaching experience. He has received multiple accolades from his time as a competitive swimmer, and the majority of his coaching career has been at the programme in Leicester, where he built the programme from its creation through to a fully formed 300+ member programme.
During his career, Guy has had a number of successes including coaching athletes that have represented their country, as well as multiple National Champions and medallists. Guy has also enjoyed a number of team successes during his career, including consecutive Arena Junior League Finals and the National Arena League Grand Final in 2022.
As a coach, I am passionate, enthusiastic, structured, hard-working and enjoy seeing the development and growth in others. As a goal driven coach, I thrive on encouraging athletes to achieve their full potential and believe one of my core strengths is the ability to help athletes identify and recognise their own potential.
My areas of focus for Ellesmere College Swimming Academy include:
Creating an environment that drives performance both in and out of the pool
Creating an environment that drives performance both in and out of the pool
Ensuring the programme best serves the athletes and supports progression
Building and monitoring training cycles, adapting accordingly to support athlete's goals
Working with the College to grow and develop the swim programme for both current and future athletes
Creating links with universities both nationally and internationally, to support our student athletes in taking the next steps on their swimming journey.
When I am not found at the edge of a pool, I enjoy learning more about sports psychology and nutrition, as well as researching about collectable cars, travelling, walking and spending time with friends and family.
Danny Proffitt
Danny has been a swimming coach for over 10 years, seven of which have been at Ellesmere College with the Swimming Academy. He has much experience working with athletes who are performance focused and their desire to take their swimming on to the next level.
He is a Level 3 Swimming coach and a Level 2 Open water coach and has been involved in many swimmers' journeys including helping swimmers reach multiple Junior and Senior international standard.
Danny came from a swimming background having swum for over 12 years in a club programme and was a multiple national medalist himself.
He graduated from the University of Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge with a BSc (Hons) in Sports Science.
"I have always been around swimming and have been involved in the sport very heavily all my life, I have had the privilege to both coach and swim at a high standard through the years. My aim is not only to help create an environment where children can find success in the sport but also to enjoy doing so and have fun in the years that they spend at the school.
My main strengths as a coach are my dedication to the sport and the athletes themselves; I am highly motivated to help the swimmers succeed and am a big technician of the sport and love developing the technique of swimmers. Due to my many years as a swimmer/student myself I believe it gives me a good understanding of what the children go through on a daily basis compared to your typical pupil at school.
When I am not on deck, I like to spend time going on walks or on my paddleboard on the mere, or if I'm having a couch day then nothing beats watching a good series on Netflix."
Mikey Hire
Mikey is the newest member of the Ellesmere College Swimming Academy and has been a full-time swimming coach for almost 10 years. Before that, he has swum within a performance pathway for 8 years, culminating at the high-performance centre in Swansea. He has experience of working at all levels within a club from entry level to performance. Swimmers under his tutelage boast achievements including county record holders, regional champions, and multiple national medallists. He has also played a part in the journey of a number of athletes who have gone onto international junior level.
He is a level 3 coach and graduated from Swansea University with a 2:1 BSc (Hons) Business Management.
Mikey has held many positions within Coach Development Pathways, these include West Midlands Regional Development Head Coach 2019 and 2020, National Development Skill Coach 2021 and 2022 and the 2020 National Pathway Coach Programme cohort.
He says of his coaching philosophy: "It's based around helping athletes on their journey to achieve things they thought weren't possible. To develop athletes as people to enable success in the pool long term but also to be successful in life. The athlete centric approach at Ellesmere College Swimming Academy is something we pride ourselves on and is aligned with my coaching approach. Making athletes feel valued, as well as being organised and structured are a few of my strengths as a coach. Here at Ellesmere College Swimming Academy, we have the resources, facilities and support to help athletes reach their potential."
Away from poolside, he is an avid Liverpool FC fan and follows a wide range of sports. He enjoys going on walks with his partner, cycling and quality time with his family.
Darren Ruff
Strength & Conditioning Coach
Darren has close to twenty years of experience in the Health and Fitness industry and currently leads the Strength and Conditioning programme at Ellesmere College. He provides support and education for many of the students, specifically focusing on those in the College's sporting academies.
A graduate of Staffordshire University in Sports and Exercise Science, Darren has further developed his skills gaining professional accreditations in the following areas:
Strength and Conditioning coaching
Youth Paediatric Strength and Conditioning
Level 3 Personal Training
National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) Performance Coach
Darren's coaching philosophy is to 'Educate, Engage and Enable' his students to become the best that they can be. He extends this to himself through continuing professional development in relevant areas and keeping up to date with current research in Sports and Exercise Science. His commitment and passion is evident in the sessions he runs, whether to a large group or on a one to one basis, each one is specially crafted to suit the ability and needs of the athletes in front of him.
I feel extremely fortunate and am privileged to work with so many talented individuals in a multitude of sports. From world class athletes competing at international level to weekend warriors facing their first park run. I support each of them through their journeys and tailor my sessions to meet their specific needs.
Away from my role at the College I spend much of my time ferrying my own children to various sporting activities and on the rare occasion I get a free weekend I enjoy playing golf and spending time with the family. I love all kinds of sports and am a big fan of Chelsea FC, the Chicago Bulls and the NFL LA Rams.
Our squad structure is built to ensure we offer athletes the highest quality coaching right from the start of their swimming journey. Our coach-to-athlete ratios operates at approximately 1:15 which allows for individual focus, development and progression.
For the 2022 – 2023 season, we will be running three squads:
Senior Performance
Youth Performance
Regional Performance
Please note that the year groups outlined on the diagram above are only indicative, highlighting the broad year groups within a squad. Alignment to squad is dependent on a number of factors including performances, training consistency, attendance (disregarding absence due to ill health) and is at the discretion of the Coaching Team.
Our bespoke swim timetable ensures Academy members have access to the required levels of training dependent on their goals, capability, and development needs.Each year, we work closely with the College to ensure we operate a timetable that not only serves the swimming needs of our student athletes, but also their academic needs. Working collaboratively to design the timetable, alongside having onsite dedicated facilities enables us to schedule earlier swim sessions during the week, and minimal swim sessions across a weekend to allow for greater periods of rest, recovery, and study time during evenings and weekends for our student athletes.
If you are considering applying for the Swimming Academy, we accept applications throughout the academic year from Year 5 and above and these are open to scholarships and means tested bursaries.
To be considered for a Swimming Scholarship, the candidate would need to be performing at:
the equivalent of a regional standard
and/or the use of national ranking system.
Sports Awards may be up to a maximum of 50% of school fees, although entrants below Sixth Form level are unlikely to receive merit awards higher than 25% of school fees.
To find out more about our scholarships and bursary programmes, click here.
And for general queries, please contact our Admissions Department on: 01691 622321 or admissions@ellesmere.com
Ellesmere College Swimming Academy regularly competes in County, Regional, National and International events. Please view the reports below to see how our athletes have performed.
The ECSA have recently returned from the Coral Bay Hotel and Resort in Paphos, Cyprus. The trip was incredibly successful in providing learning and development opportunities for student athletes both in and out the pool.
The ECSA student athletes have all embraced their time away with tenacity and focus. When conducting themselves around the hotel, the athletes were ambassadors for Ellesmere College and demonstrated the core values of the ECSA. They were polite, respectful, and consistently registered on time, building a solid foundation of trust. The coaching team arrived with high expectations; having planned a demanding schedule of training, balanced with down time for the student athletes to be able to enjoy the experience as a whole. The team did not disappoint and showed their dedication and determination towards their training by stepping up in the pool and pushing themselves when asked.
Our day started at 6.25am where the team made their way down to the 50m pool and woke themselves up by doing some pre-pool exercises with the luxury backdrop of the morning Cypriot sunrise. After a session in the pool the team would then enjoy breakfast together in the restaurant.
Breakfast became the highlight of the day as the variety of food on offer catered for everyone's tastes, with pancakes and waffles being a firm favourite. After breakfast the team would gather on the sofas which became our meeting point, and the plan for the day was discussed. Down time consisted of playing snooker, table tennis, volleyball, relaxing at the beach, sunbathing by the pool, or enjoying unlimited mocktails on the terraces. Next it was lunch, where the team would regroup and then return to the pool for the afternoon session, to continue pushing themselves in their training.
In the evenings the team would meet for supper and discuss the day. The evening food at the hotel was exceptional, featuring a variety of foods to meet everyone's needs. We enjoyed Mexican,Fish, BBQ, Cypriot and 'All Around The World' themed evenings. Following advice from the coaching team around nutrition and hydration, the student athletes tried foods that they had not experienced before, ensuring they ate responsibly, refuelling their bodies ready for following days training. The student athlete's day finally drew to a close at 9.30pm when they went back to their bedrooms to rejuvenate, ready to go again the following day.
A huge thank you to Sports Abroad and the Cyprus Tourism Board for all their help in organising this trip for the ECSA. We look forward to the next one!
