Meet Ash Morris, Repton School's New Director of Swimming
Sep 15, 2022
iCrowdMarketing powered by iCrowdNewswire
Repton School, one of the UK’s pre-eminent, co-educational day and boarding schools, has announced the appointment of Ash Morris as Repton ’s new director of swimming. An experienced coach who has trained top swimmers and medalists, Morris joins Repton in November 2022 and will oversee the continued growth of the Club. He will also ensure the School’s swimmers have every opportunity to maximise their potential and make a splash on the regional, national, and international swimming scene.
World-Class Coaches
Repton School has a history of sporting excellence. Its multi-million-pound sports centre sits in the heart of rural Derbyshire and enables students to integrate sport into daily life, setting the stage for a culture of high-level performance. But the School’s lineup of acclaimed coaches and instructors is the real inspiration behind its pupils' passion for sports.
Repton School’s students enjoy coaching from an impressive roster of world-class sports professionals. Among them: Chris Read, England wicketkeeper and cricket champion; Martin Jones, who has won more than 100 England hockey caps; Ian Clarkson, former professional footballer; and Molly Holder, Stoke City footballer. A recent addition is two-time Olympian Donna Kellogg as an external badminton coach.
Until recently, Repton’s director of swimming was Scott Talbot, the Australian Olympic swimming coach and double Olympian swimmer himself. After two successful years at Repton, Talbot is leaving to take up a top position at the High-Performance Centre in Vancouver.
His successor Ash Morris has an equally impressive resume and experience to bring to the role. Throughout his career, Morris has coached more than 30 swimmers to selection at international junior and senior team levels and helped many achieve scholarships at top universities globally. His coaching journey began in the UK before he moved to Dubai and became head coach at Hamilton Aquatics and then the club’s director of swimming.
For the last 13 years, Morris has played a crucial role in Hamilton Aquatics’ success in becoming the Middle East’s top swimming club. Under his guidance, the club became the only overseas team to achieve the Top Club medal table at the British Championships. This was also during a spell of nine years when Morris coached and mentored GB swimmer and Commonwealth medalist Lewis Burras.
Sport for All: The Repton Way
Complementing its first-rate coaches, Repton School boasts state-of-the-art sports facilities, including a private cricket ground; indoor tennis courts; and an indoor 25m, 6-lane swimming pool with racing blocks and spectator area. There is another such pool at Repton Prep, the junior school site, meaning plenty of time in the water for pupils to hone their swimming skills. Adam Peaty MBE, Olympic World, European, and Commonwealth Champion and world-record holder, used Repton as his main training venue in the years leading up to his historic gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Over 80% of Reptonians represent the School in at least one sport, and there are plenty to choose from. A pupil might pursue athletics, badminton, basketball, cricket, hockey, tennis, rugby, fives, cross country, golf, riding, sailing, or swimming, and some go on to lead successful careers in the sporting world. For example, Upper Sixth pupil Ella Rush recently became the UK Indoor Women’s Pentathlon Champion 2022.
Sport is an integral aspect of the curriculum and daily life at Repton School, which offers an array of competitive sporting opportunities for students of all abilities. This way, all pupils, not just those achieving the highest levels of performance, can participate and enjoy the benefits exercise has to offer. The School’s goal is to help every pupil realise their sporting and athletic potential and feel supported as they learn and develop.
Sport, academics, and extra-curricular activities co-exist in harmony at Repton, ensuring quality is not sacrificed in any area of school life. Every pupil takes part in sport at least three times per week, with the structure of the school week maximising training time and match play by alternating whole days and half days of lessons. Repton even has an alternative winter timetable to make the most of daylight hours for outdoor sports during the darker, colder months.
Repton Swimming
Back to the pool, Repton has enjoyed considerable success since swimming became a focus sport for the School in 2019. (Other focus sports include cricket, football, hockey, netball, and tennis, and the School has collated an enviable collection of silverware from many successful competitions.) To date, Repton’s swimmers have performed and achieved at regional and national levels.
Repton offers a premier swimming programme that allows students to compete not only in school competitions but also in the Swim England competition framework. Swimmers can access first-class coaching and specialist facilities seven days per week. Once they’ve reached a certain level of prowess, pupils add specialist Strength and Conditioning sessions at least twice weekly to complement their pool training.
Swimmers also have access to Repton Sports Clinic for support with their physical progress. This is also where any necessary rehabilitation or physiotherapy takes place.
The School’s approach to health is holistic, and Repton looks after its swimmers’ mental well-being as well as their physical health. Repton assigns a mentor to each pupil to ensure they have all the guidance they need to excel in their sporting and academic endeavours. When the time comes to leave school, mentors help pupils transition beyond Repton to wherever their paths lie, whether university, top sporting institutions, or other high-level opportunities.
Swimming Success at the Highest Level
Mark Semmence, Repton’s headmaster, has expressed his delight in welcoming Morris to Repton Director of Swimming, confident that Morris’ credentials and considerable experience as one of the sport’s top coaches will provide the crucial leadership to help pupils and club members build on recent successes. Semmence notes: “We look forward to seeing swimming go from strength to strength with Ash at the helm.”
While sad to say farewell to Dubai, Morris is eager to join the Repton community with his wife and daughter. From Dubai to Derbyshire, come November 2022, Morris will dive into his new mission of guiding Repton to further triumphs. Repton School also hopes that Morris can apply his considerable coaching talent to create a clear pathway for gifted students starting from Learn2Swim all the way through to international medalists.
“I am extremely excited to continue the great work that has been started at Repton,” Morris says. “This is an exciting project and we want to help young people achieve both academic and swimming success at the very highest level.”
Learn more about sports at Repton School.
About Repton School
Repton School in Derbyshire is an award-winning, co-educational, independent boarding school for pupils aged 3 to 18. Set in the picturesque surroundings of Repton village, the School combines hundreds of years of history and traditional values with contemporary aims and outlook to realise its strong educational vision: to shape each pupil into a well-rounded adult who is prepared for a future that meets their idea of success in the modern world. Repton offers an all-round curriculum that emphasises sporting and creative enterprises without compromising on academic success.
Repton is a through-school that provides a smooth transition from prep school through to sixth form. An emphasis on proactive and pre-emptive pastoral care means each student feels safe, supported, and valued and the School’s House system provides a strong sense of community enjoyed by boarding and day pupils alike.