Simon Herdman: Why I’m running the London Marathon for Blanche Nevile School for Deaf Children

Support Simon’s run by clicking here. 

Hi, my name is Simon, sign name: shh. After completing my PGCE and gaining my Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in July 2021, I am currently in my second year of my Early Career Teacher (ECT) at Blanche Nevile School for Deaf Children.

I hope to raise £2,000 for the incredible school – Blanche Nevile School for Deaf Children, through their charity partner, Friends of Blanche Nevile. Also, I am attempting my first-ever marathon – please wish me good luck!

I am raising money for Friends of Blanche Nevile because I believe Deaf education matters and every deaf child should have the right to good education. Nelson Mandela sums it up best; ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’. 

Friends of Blanche Nevile is a charity for Blanche Nevile School with an aim to provide facilities, experiences, and equipment for Deaf children through fundraising, contributions, and grants that the local authorities do not offer.

Blanche Nevile School delivers a bilingual child-centred curriculum. Blanche Nevile School offers Deaf children the opportunity to interact and play with their hearing peers as Blanche Nevile Primary and Secondary schools are each co-located with two excellent mainstream partner schools in North London. Blanche Nevile School believes in having high expectations for every Deaf child and working to ensure they get the best opportunities for their future.

I love doing challenges. I started park running when I made the big move from Newcastle to London in August 2021. Since then, I have continued participating in local park runs and did my first 10k at Vitality 10000 in London earlier this May. So, when Friends of Blanche Nevile informed the staff and families that there was a spot available for the London marathon, I signed up immediately and I can assure you that I am not lying when I say that I have no regrets. Errr, maybe?

Did you know my 67-year-old Dad competed with me in a 5k park run last year? He swept the floor with me in a time of 27 minutes. Unfortunately, he declared that he won’t be doing another park run again (he prefers to walk) – which means I can never have an opportunity to challenge him to a rematch! But congratulations to my Dad for doing so well in his first and only 5k park run.

Now, the furthest I have run is 22 miles – as preparation for the actual marathon on Sunday 2nd October, where I will run 26.2 miles! I want to give a BIG SIGN out to the people I have met and who ran with me, including family and friends! Thank you for your support, especially Nicholas Ansell and Oliver Westbury who gave me plenty of tips for my training!

The training for my marathon has been incredibly tough as I have been juggling training and managing my workload as a teacher. I have previously participated in some tough challenges such as participating in a wrestling match, summiting Scafell Pike when I was a young bairn, cycled both the C2C trail and the Trans Pennie trail but I can assure you that nothing is tougher than surviving your first year in teaching.

In your first year, the workload is intense, and you have to try your utmost to keep on top of things, along with planning your lessons, resources and completing paperwork. But my first ECT year has been an incredible journey, and I managed to complete my first year, because of support from the team at Blanche Nevile School, especially Emily, my mentor.

I also want to give a special SIGN OUT to two incredible organisations, BSL Zone for sponsoring my efforts, and I wanted to create an unique collaboration that will benefit the deaf ecosystem, so I asked the incredibly talented Luke Christian of DEAF IDENTITY to design the sponsorship from BSL Zone, along with the logos of Blanche Nevile School and Friends of Blanche Nevile onto a special top that I will be wearing when I run my marathon.

So, a massive thank you to the team at BSL Zone and Luke Christian at DEAF IDENTITY for showing Friends of Blanche Nevile your support!

Time is counting down until I run my first ever marathon, but do not worry, dear readers, you can still donate by clicking this link – https://tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/simon-herdman?utm_source=EnthuseSendGrid&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=website