It’s quite a cliché for me to pick a PE teacher as “my best teacher”, but my PE teacher at secondary school, Kate Finch, was just one of the more inspirational teachers.

She’d been teaching for a long time: she must have been in her sixties when I was at school. What amazed me was her endurance for it. I came in nearer the end of her career. She’d seen so many people coming through the school - Humphry Davy School, in Penzance - and still kept her passion.

I can’t remember her playing any specific sport. I don’t think she was a particularly expert sportsperson. You don’t have to be great at sport to be good at teaching it. I didn’t see her as a particularly competitive person. She wanted you to enjoy doing it. But she knew for me that that was what I wanted, so she was competitive for me. She wrote in my school leaving book: “See you at the Olympics.”

An inspirational PE teacher

The best way to describe it is that she was one of the gunners for the school. It came out in her interest and her enthusiasm. If I came into class after a cross-country event at the weekend, she’d ask how I’d got on. I think it’s really important at school - that you have people outside your family who care about how you’re doing.

She remembered individual small things that we cared about. When I was walking back across the field, she’d ask me questions about my family or things not to do with sport. That just made you feel cared for.

One time, when I was younger, I ran cross-country for England, at school level. A letter came from our local MP, with “Houses of Parliament” written on the envelope. I was really excited. But my mum got a phone call from Mrs Finch: “You’re not going to believe it: Helen got a letter from the Houses of Parliament.”

‘Never pushy’

The lessons that she most enjoyed teaching were things like tennis and netball. I was never massively keen on netball, but she was always supportive. She wanted me to be on the team.

She was never pushy - she tried to be encouraging, rather than a drill sergeant. I remember her encouraging the best players and the least sporty in the same lesson, which was quite a talent.

When she took us to matches, she was never screaming at the sidelines. She wanted us to be enjoying ourselves.

I became a PE teacher at the same time as I became a rower, and that was because I wanted to do that for other people: I wanted to give them the opportunity to enjoy sport the way I had.

Getting into teaching

The PE lesson was the hour of every day that I just couldn’t wait for. It was the time when I could just go and be me, and feel like me. I wanted to get other kids to feel that. My goal was always to make sure that I was inspiring the children who were less inspired, while encouraging the children who were more able. And I definitely thought of Mrs Finch often, when I tried to do that.

I was only a PE teacher for a couple of years, then I made it on to the rowing team.

Mrs Finch actually came to my wedding. It was three weeks after the Rio Olympics. My family very much stays in touch with her. She’s always stayed in touch with my parents.

If you’re going to take sport to any level - whether you want to get fit or take it to the Olympics or make it a part of your social life - enjoying what you do is really, really important. That’s what I’ve taken from Mrs Finch.

While I’ve been training, I’ve really worried about whether I’m enjoying it. Since Rio, I’ve done lots of sport purely for enjoyment: marathons, half iron man, kayaking. For the first time in 10 years, I’ve been doing it just for enjoyment, not focusing on winning. And I think that’s really important in life.  

Helen Glover is an ambassador for Travel to Tokyo, part of Get Set, Team GB and ParalympicsGB’s youth engagement programme, with £2.6 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England, and support from partners including ukactive. The programme aims to inspire young people aged 5 to 11 and their families to try new activities and get active together in the run-up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. By joining athletes on a virtual journey from London to Tokyo, participants will join half a million families across England in getting active, learning new skills and having fun, and be in with a chance of winning some fantastic prizes along the way. Sign up here.