Over the past couple of terms, Mr Lyons has been asked to nominate a student for the Rotary Club ‘Student of the Term’ award, which celebrates a student for their fundraising efforts.
Last term, Will Hamilton, Year 13, was awarded for his Royal British Legion fundraising, which took him on a journey from a 104km run over the Remembrance ’23 weekend to the London Marathon!
This term, we hand the award over to Oliver Nathanielsz, Year 9, who describes the ‘challenge’ section of his Duke of Edinburgh Award as inspiration for his fundraising effort for the National Autistic Society.
Oliver attended the Rotary Club award ceremony last week and said "It was an amazing experience meeting everyone at the Rotary Club – they were so welcoming and friendly. We met some really interesting people and they all made me feel at ease when I read out my speech".
Many congratulations Oliver – we are incredibly proud!
Here's an excerpt from Oliver’s speech:
In September 2023, Wallingford School offered the opportunity of completing the Duke of Edinburgh bronze award. I knew this was something I really wanted to participate in. For those of you unfamiliar with the Duke of Edinburgh award, each attendee must complete three elements - a challenge, a physical activity and volunteering.
I decided to use my love of cricket for physical activity, as I am a regular player for the under 15s and the adult team in Cholsey, along with my dad who is also part of the club. My Sister Thea plays football for Cholsey Bluebirds, so I volunteered to help with her training every week along with refereeing her games as and when required.
However, the ‘challenge’ was something I had to really think about. The results of this challenge are what my teacher, Mr Lyons, nominated me for. I decided to train and run the Cholsey Treehouse 10K. As I was under 16, I had to get my dad to run with me, along with my Uncle Joe and Uncle Matt who decided to show their support. As the four of us were going to run, I asked if we could fundraise for the ‘National Autistic Society’. This is because my 5 year old Cousin Noah is autistic; Noah is loving and affectionate, and one of the happiest children you could ever meet - if we were all a little bit like Noah, the world would be a much better place.
My Uncle Matt and Auntie Sophie, Noah's parents, rely on the National Autistic Society for so much, whether it’s online webinars, watching videos, attending speech & language therapy or learning Makaton signing, so the cause is something that is very close to our hearts.
The training was hard and I used the Macmillan “Couch to 10k” to help. However, in December I had to have emergency lower abdominal surgery, which meant that I could not train for 6 weeks, and it was only three months before my run! As soon as my recovery was done, I was straight back in my running shoes!
It took a while to get back into the swing of things, but as soon as I was fully recovered, I was back into running 5ks, which went from 7 to 9 to 10k in as much as 2 months.
And then, just like that, it was the day of the run - March 24th! I was excited, but scared about how I would do. However, as soon as I met up with my dad and uncles who were doing the run with me, and other family members cheering us on throughout the race, I believed in myself and I completed the run in 1 hour and 8 minutes!
Our initial fundraising target on the Just Giving page was £1000.00 and we reached this within 24 hours! And then, after the run, we were at £2,500! I was so surprised, yet I knew there were a lot of people who donated and I am still grateful to this day for all the support.
I had a lot of fun during my experience, although there were some ups and some downs. We finished the fundraising with a final count of £3,020, which is amazing especially as the original target was £1,000! My Uncle Matthew ran the London Marathon in 2022 for the same cause and he raised £3,031. So, as a family it is amazing that we have raised in excess of £6,000 for this amazing cause.