Sheikh Sheikh

Sheikh is an international-class wheelchair racer. He has attended our School since Year 9 following a long period of rehabilitation for a serious spinal injury sustained in a road traffic accident in the year he turned 8. He is now finishing his GCSEs and he will go on to College locally and a continuing programme of high-level athletics training. Sheikh has been an inspiration to so many of his peers, as well as adults, in School both able-bodied and with various disabilities. We have seen him courageously maintain a high level of attendance and keep up with his School work despite the enormous challenge of his condition and coping with the discomfort and pain incurred in ongoing surgical operations as well as on the basis of daily living. Sheikh has developed and maintained many friendships and relationships. He has also contributed good works towards others: during Year 10 he featured in a book released by Aspire (the spinal injury charity) in which those rehabilitated from severe injury provide inspiration for other more recent sufferers through their words in interviews and photos which were taken in a setting in which they are achieving alongside others, as in School. In 2010 Sheikh won first place in the London Mini-Marathon Under-15 class and in 2011 he won the same prize in the Under-17s. On the weekend of May 28-9th this year he won a number of first prizes in the Swiss International Games in wheelchair racing. We think of Sheikh as a great role-model!