Ade Adepitan is a TV presenter well known for hosting documentaries on subjects ranging from climate change to travelogues. He also represented Great Britain at the 2004 Paralympic Games, in which he won a bronze medal in wheelchair basketball.

He spoke to Tes about his school days, memorable teachers who made a real difference to his life, an eye-opening trip out of London and why he’s hoping to educate the next generation about how to tackle climate change.

1. Where did you go to primary school?

I went to a school called Credon Primary School, which we later moved out of because it was a really old building. [I then went to] a school called Southern Road Primary School in Plaistow [in East London].

2. What are some of your first memories there?

My first day of school was such an important day because it was kind of my day of gaining acceptance from the other kids. The first day of school for every kid is massive, but for me I think it was even bigger because I had a disability, I was one of the few black kids in that school and I’d not long come from Nigeria so I still had a strong Nigerian accent…so I had all those things to overcome and it made the first day of school feel very significant.

3. And did it go well?

What was fortunate for me was that I was good at sport and I enjoyed it. I think, when you’re that age, sport is the universal language, especially for young boys, because if you can prove yourself on the football pitch, which I did, it surprised all the kids because I’ve got a disability - I was walking on calipers, which gave me this huge pronounced limp; I had one leg shorter than the other; I was wearing hospital boots; I was very short. So everything about me screamed “not good at sport”.

So for me to suddenly be this kid with lightning reflexes in goal who would go into these hard tackles and make these amazing saves, it spoke their language, so that made life a lot easier for me in my first few days.

4. And were there any teachers there whom you remember well?

There were two. One was Ms Singleton, but I think she’s now Mrs Sanford. We would have a swimming lesson once a week, and swimming was really difficult for me - I didn’t have that much control of my body so it was one of the first times when I got really frustrated [because] the other kids in my class, they progressed way faster than I did. They were doing a width and a length, getting their badges and all of that.

So, after two months, I was still really scared of water. And also, the whole body image I’ve got because of polio…My legs are very skinny, my body was just different. I couldn’t walk when I had my calipers off and I couldn’t swim with my calipers on. So I would have to slide across the floor and I knew that made me different. I had all of that complex stuff going on.

Mrs Sanford obviously watched me struggling and then one day she came to lesson with this float and what she’d done was sewn about four or five mini rectangular floats in almost like an ankle bracelet.

She said to me, “I want you to put this on your left leg,” which is the leg that I didn’t have control over. And she said, “I think this will help you because it will keep that leg afloat so you won’t have to worry about that leg being out of control and then you can just focus on the parts of the body that work.”

And within a couple of weeks, I’d swum my width and then I swam a length. I remember going up in assembly [to get my badges] and that was one of the proudest moments of my life - it was a moment when I started to understand the power of hard work and the power of achievement.

5. That’s a lovely story. And who was the second teacher?

She was called Mrs Hagen. She would read books to us every day and it was magical. It would just take you to these other worlds and ignite your imagination. I think that’s where my love of books and literature came from.

When [a book] is held in the hands of a teacher, or someone who’s able to really convey the characters in the book, it’s special - it connects with you as a child and stays with you for the rest of your life.

6. Did you go on any good trips at that school?

There was a really big trip that my school went on, to a place called Fairplay House. It was this old country house in these big grounds surrounded by forests and lakes and lots of outdoor space.

My school knew that I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford this trip, so I think they had some sort of fund or something whereby they select a few kids who had worked hard to go on this trip.

And they picked me - and it makes me want to cry even now to think of it because it was the first time I left London and the concrete jungle of high rises. I remember sitting in the coach and seeing less and less concrete and more and more trees - it made my heart just go at a trillion miles an hour.

Then to stay in this massive mansion with an outdoor swimming pool…We’d go out and we’d get tadpoles and we’d get dragonflies and worms and we learned to canoe. It was brilliant. It was so, so, so good. It was the best trip I’ve ever been on in my life.

It was like I was given a new set of eyes and shown a whole new world and new possibilities.

7. How was the move to secondary school?

This will sound a bit big headed, but people knew about me as I was coming to secondary school because I was this disabled black kid who was really good at football.

There were loads of kids in my primary school who, when we went into secondary school, the first thing they wanted to tell everyone was, “this is Ade, he’s really good at football”. So that helps going into secondary school.

8. So you settled quickly?

Well, it was a tough transition, too. It was a lot more walking…and that really took a toll on my body physically because I put on weight and got bigger and stronger, [and] my legs basically weren’t made for walking.

The walk to school was the best part of a mile, and you’d have all your books, and I’d have to carry them on my shoulder. It was physically quite exhausting.

But I think the toughest thing was that the pace was a lot quicker. As soon as the bell went, I had to go from one class to a different lesson, and you only had a really short space of time. You’d have this rush of kids and so when that bell went off, it was absolute chaos.

Within the first week of school I was actually knocked down a flight of stairs - some kids hit me in the back as they ran into lessons and I tripped and tumbled down and I cut my arm quite badly, [but] got in trouble for being late.

But I didn’t really want to make a big deal out of it because I was worried that if teachers thought I couldn’t cope, I would be taken out of school, so I just got on with it and dealt with the rough and tumble. It took probably a good couple of years for me to get to grips with it.

9. Were there any teachers there that inspired you?

We had a teacher called Mrs Nduka who was a sociology teacher. And she was amazing. Sociology was quite a controversial subject back then but it really opened my eyes to the way the world works and the science of human beings.

She was amazing at getting that across. But it was also her dedication. I remember at one stage, when we got to the period of exams, I was so unfocused and my class was so unfocused, we had so many distractions - there was quite a lot of violence, it was a dangerous period, drugs were starting to come into the area, it was difficult.

And she said to our class: “No one in my class is going to fail sociology.” And she came to all our houses during our study leave and she gave us all an hour extra of lessons - she would come and sit there and she would go through each topic.

And it’s because of her that I got a double A for sociology. She was brilliant. So a big shout-out to her.

10. You’ve created your own educational resources about climate change - why is that such an important topic to you?

It can be really difficult to connect [the human impact of climate change] with the science [so] I wanted to create a series that was about how individuals are being affected by climate change.

So, we made these three episodes on climate change [Climate Change: Ade on the Frontline] and we were fortunate to get BBC Teach involved, so everywhere we went, I would do a little section which would be just for schools, to educate them.

I feel so proud that we’ve created this resource. It’s free to access and learn about climate change and not just about how it’s affecting people, but also about the solutions and about what we can do as individuals. So it’s not just educational, it’s also something that’s empowering people to understand what’s going on and what they can do.

Ade Adepitan will be presenting the Tokyo Paralympics Highlights Show on Channel 4 at 5pm from 24 August-5 September. He was talking to Dan Worth, senior editor at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 20 August 2021 issue