Held as part of QPCRC’s family day, it couldn’t have been a more fitting occasion. Rather than being marked out as visitors or “the school group”, the young people were folded straight into the wider club community alongside members and families who have watched them grow throughout the year. For a programme built on the idea of belonging, that was the whole point.
Rowing to Success is supported by Love Rowing, delivered in partnership with Queen’s Park Chester Rowing Club and funded by the Westminster Foundation. Together, they set out to do something simple but powerful: open the doors of a rowing club to young people who might never otherwise have thought the sport — or the club — was for them.
Reflecting on the programme’s first year, Caroline da Cunha, Cheshire Grant Manager at the Westminster Foundation, said:
“Programmes like Rowing to Success show what can happen when young people are given the right support, encouragement and a genuine sense of belonging. In just one year, the programme has helped young people build confidence, develop new skills and form lasting connections within their community. The stories from this first year are a powerful reminder of the difference that inclusive, community-led opportunities can make, helping young people realise their potential.”
One year on, the results speak for themselves.
A Year That Changed Almost 100 Young Lives
Since launching, Rowing to Success has worked with close to 100 young people from Queen’s Park High School, Blacon High School, Bishops Heber High School, Catholic High School and The Bridge Short Stay School — many of them stepping into a boat, and often a sports club of any kind, for the very first time.
The programme was deliberately built around small groups, so coaches and school staff could give every young person individual attention and adapt sessions to what they actually needed that day — not a one-size-fits-all curriculum. It’s an approach rooted in youth work principles as much as rowing technique: build trust first, and the rest follows.
That patience has paid off. A meaningful number of participants chose to continue from the first taster stage into deeper involvement with the club — not because they were told to, but because they wanted to come back.
And the club has made sure that returning is as easy as possible. Behind the scenes, QPCRC and Love Rowing have worked to strip out every barrier that normally keeps young people like these out of sport: affordable memberships, adaptive equipment, swimming lessons, warm kit, transport from the school gate. The development of a youth leadership programme will give 16-to 18-year-olds the chance to volunteer and gain real qualifications alongside their own rowing journey.
But the numbers and the logistics only tell half the story. The real proof of what Rowing to Success is achieving is in the individual young people whose lives it has quietly turned around.
“It’s Very Unlikely She’ll Join In” — Pupil A’s Story
At The Bridge Short Stay School in Ellesmere Port — a pupil referral unit for young people permanently excluded from mainstream education — one 14-year-old arrived carrying the weight of a “complete blow,” in the words of one staff member: exclusion from mainstream school, driven by a combination of extreme autism and ADHD.
When Rowing to Success reached her school, expectations were modest. For weeks, she came to sessions but wouldn’t join in — first watching the rowing machines from a distance, then, once the group moved to the boat club itself, helping with the equipment and observing her peers from the bank while everyone else went out on the water. She turned up consistently. She just didn’t row.
Staff had learned not to expect much more than that. As one class teacher put it at the time: “It’s very unlikely she’ll join in, but it’s good just to get her out of the classroom and clear her head.”
Then, one session, everything changed. Without being asked, she asked staff whether she could get into one of the double sculls herself.
She was paired with an experienced rower and, supported into the boat by lead coach Charlie Ford, went out onto the river for the first time — rowing under her own choice, for the first time in her life choosing to actively take part in an activity of any kind.
It wasn’t a small moment. It was, quite simply, a breakthrough.
In the weeks that followed, staff noticed something remarkable: she began coming into school specifically on the days rowing sessions were scheduled. A young person who had all but disengaged from education was now organising her attendance around a rowing club. She continues today, actively and voluntarily taking part in Stage 1 of Rowing to Success.
For a pupil who had found nothing else to connect with in a school setting, rowing became her way back in — proof that sometimes the most effective route into a classroom runs through a boat on the river.
“A Different Person After He’s Been Rowing” — Hugh’s Story
Sixteen-year-old Hugh is deaf-blind — completely deaf and visually impaired, wearing a bone-conducting hearing aid because his hearing loss isn’t suited to a cochlear implant. He is academically and physically able and, in his own words, doesn’t identify as disabled — he identifies as capable. But for most of his life, the world hadn’t always seen him that way, and many of his experiences in sport and elsewhere had been discouraging. Scouting was, until now, one of the only places that had given him a genuinely positive experience.
Rowing changed that.
“I have really enjoyed rowing since starting and look forward to spending more time rowing after my exams and during my summer holiday,” Hugh says. “My stamina has improved as well as my upper body strength… Working as a team has been beneficial for me, and I am improving my technique every time. I am really enjoying the challenge of a new sport.”
He talks about the beauty of rowing through Chester itself — the wildlife, the river views — and about something just as important: meeting new people, building his communication and social skills, and looking forward to the day competitions bring even more new faces into his life.
His mum, Jacqueline, puts the change in stark terms: “Hugh is a different person after he has been rowing. He is chatty, enthusiastic and approachable.” After years of unwelcoming, competitive sporting environments, she says, Hugh has finally found one that quietly adapts around him so he can compete on equal footing with his peers — a sport that prioritises his wellbeing and lets his identity grow away from his disability, without ever ignoring it.
“Thanks to the team at QPCRC for their kindness, inclusivity and patience,” Hugh says simply. It’s a small line, but it captures exactly what the club has been building all year.
The Role of the Club
None of this happens by accident. Rowing to Success exists because Queen’s Park Chester Rowing Club chose to open its doors, share its expertise, and take the time to understand every single young person who walked through them — whether that meant adapting a session for a pupil with SEND, giving a nervous first-timer space to simply watch from the bank, or celebrating the day a reluctant participant finally asked to get in the boat.
The first year has shown that a club doesn’t need to start with huge numbers to make a huge difference. It needs coaches and volunteers willing to be patient, schools willing to collaborate closely, and a genuine, sustained commitment to putting the young person — not the programme — at the centre of every decision. QPCRC, backed by Love Rowing’s expertise and the Westminster Foundation’s funding, has delivered exactly that.
What Comes Next
The anniversary celebration wasn’t just a look back — it was the starting gun for year two. With Bishops Heber High School and Catholic High School now on board alongside the founding schools, more young people than ever are getting the chance to picture themselves in a boat — and further schools are preparing to join in the years ahead. Love Rowing will keep working alongside the club and schools to strengthen the pathway from a first taster session all the way through to lasting membership.
The ambition for year two is the same as it was on day one: give more young people the chance to feel, in body and mind, what rowing can do for them — and to know that their local rowing club is somewhere they truly belong.
Because that’s what this first year has really been about. Not medals, not metres on the water — but a girl who chose, for the first time, to get in a boat. A young man who found a sport patient enough to meet him exactly where he is. And a club that proved, one young person at a time, that everyone deserves a place on the water.
Rowing to Success is supported by Love Rowing and delivered by Queen’s Park Chester Rowing Club, funded by the Westminster Foundation.