Our girls enjoy lots of extracurricular activities as part of school enrichment, but we also support them wholeheartedly in their external pursuits too, and this pays off with great success stories.

Here at NGHS we have at least 3 girls who skate with the Nottingham Synchronized Skating Academy – Lucy Nowicki, Freya McGarva and Georgie Spencer. The girls are not all in the same teams but have all experienced success at different levels. The most recent of these has been Freya who is a member of the Nottingham Icicles squad who are a junior team of girls aged 13 – 19. They compete internationally and train for around 10 – 14 hours a week, usually on 4 or 5 evenings, weekends or mornings; that’s real dedication! The team recently gave flawless performances on home turf at the Nottingham Ice Arena, achieving high scores across the board and beating a Scottish team to reach the World Championships that will be held in Croatia in March!

Freya loves this sport and explained a bit about what it involves: “Synchronised skating is where you have 16 skaters in a team at once who all need to look the same, dresses, makeup, hair etc. We have a short program (3mins long) which is performed on the first day of the competition and a long program (4mins30) which is performed the second day. We all have to do different elements and movements in time with each other as well as the performance side.”

The Icicles have already represented Great Britain at the World Junior Synchronized Skating Championships in Canada back in March 2017, and will be travelling to Dumfries on 8 Feb to compete at the International Skating Union Trophy d’Ecosse Synchronized Skating Competition which will take place on 9 and 10 Feb. We wish them all the best for that event, and of course for the World Championships in March.

Freya concluded enthusiastically: “I love skating with my team because you can travel the world performing and being with your 16 best friends.”