When Team GB athletes stand on the Olympic medal-winners’ podium, the whole country feels a moment of collective pride. But, for some spectators, that pride can be acutely personal.

The teachers who taught Olympic athletes at school may not have coached them in their sport. But many played an integral part in their early successes.

“As a school, we supported Jazz,” says Anita Ellis, deputy headteacher at Royal Wootton Bassett Academy in Wiltshire, who taught the swimming double silver medallist Jazz Carlin, 25.

“I used to have a lot to do with her and her mum - coordinating her trips to Swansea for swimming training, when she was taking her swimming competitively.”

The future Olympians’ teachers tended to recognise and encourage the commitment that the athletes displayed, even when it affected their studies.

Ronnie Jeffries, the head of PE at North Berwick High in East Lothian, Scotland, taught Dan Wallace, 23, who also won a silver medal for swimming this summer.

“His goals might not have been our goals,” he says of his pupil’s decision to prioritise sport over study. But our job was to help him do what he wanted to do.”

TES also spoke with the teachers who inspired seven of Team GB’s Olympic gold and silver medallists.

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Alan Watkinson (Mo Farah’s teacher)

Alan Watkinson, a PE teacher at Isleworth and Syon School in West London, taught Mo Farah, 33, the 10,000m gold medallist at Rio and a double gold medallist at London 2012.

“With Mo, from an early age, I realised that I needed to find him a coach and an athletics club. It was a management role, really. He’s got an excellent agent now, but you don’t get 11-year-olds with agents.”

“It was important to get him to venues on time - he was sometimes a little bit tardy. It was important to ensure that he knew what was going on, and how important it was to train and prepare.

“He was absolutely desperate to be a footballer, and was a little bit reluctant to get involved with athletics to start with. There were a few elements of bribery along the way: allowing him to play football before he went training, and letting him take a football along to athletics events.

“Ruthlessly, very early on, I said, ‘Look, I know you love football, but I’ve seen you play, and…’ His aptitude in football was based on his athletic ability. Tactically, he wasn’t so astute.

“Mo [who was born in Somalia] struggled with language and he struggled to access the curriculum. He was a little bit of a fish out of water, certainly in Year 7. The odd student was prepared to have a bit of fun with the fact that his language was quite poor. They would teach him certain phrases to repeat in front of teachers. On one or two occasions, he was set up. And on one or two occasions, he was a little bit naughty.

“But he’s always been a hard worker. He’s always been one of the most self-effacing, modest, charming, funny people. What you see now is a developed version of what he was then.”

Brendon Walsh (Laura Trott’s teacher)

Brendon Walsh, assistant head at Haileybury Turnford School in Hertfordshire, was head of sixth form for Laura Trott, who won cycling gold medals for team-pursuit and omnium in Rio. The 24-year-old also picked up two golds at London 2012.

“She was an excellent student: hard-working. She had to be, because she was already racing for Great Britain at the time. Balancing racing and a desire to do well at school is very difficult, but it was something she did very well.

“She studied photography and sports science in the sixth form. I remember her biking to school with her photography work balanced beside her. They were massive A3 manila folders, so that’s not an easy thing to do on a bike. But she managed to do it quite nicely.

“A lot of people think photography is an easy subject, but you’ve got to do so much outside of school time to build up your portfolio. Laura was able to maintain her studies alongside her absolutely full programme of cycling. And she was involved in charity fundraising events, driven by the PE department.

“She was naturally talented at sport - whatever she turned her hand to. But her main focus was cycling. I always remember that she was a cyclist, along with her sister: they always cycled. That was something you knew, as soon as you heard their names being spoken about at school. Her sister was an exceptional cyclist as well.

“Laura was friendly; she smiled all the time. She was committed; she was determined. All the superlatives that you can imagine.”

Darren Bullock (Adam Peaty’s teacher)

Darren Bullock is assistant principal and head of PE at Painsley Catholic College in Staffordshire, where he taught 100m breaststroke gold-medallist and new world-record holder Adam Peaty, 21.

“I taught Adam core PE - just your general PE. He never actually took GCSE PE. He was very much a swimmer. He didn’t do a great range of sports at school. He was OK at gymnastics. The natural physique of a swimmer tends to make a half-decent gymnast.

“I wouldn’t say he was mediocre at other sports - he competed alongside other students and performed well. But he certainly didn’t massively stand out. I can’t remember him being on the football or rugby teams. But he was getting up at stupid o’clock in the morning to go and do his swimming training.

“He competed in our school swimming gala, and the Staffordshire swimming galas, and then went on to the Midland games and so on. He went through the ranks.

“He was a very quiet, unassuming person, who just got on with what he needed to get on with. He certainly wasn’t one to shout about his successes in his swimming. He just kept himself to himself, and worked hard.

“He still holds the breaststroke record for our school. I think he was in Year 9 at the time. I can’t see anybody breaking that record any time soon. But you never know.”

Helen Mackenzie (Jack Laugher’s teacher)

Helen Mackenzie teaches PE at Ripon Grammar School, in North Yorkshire, and Jack Laugher, 21, who won a gold and silver medal for diving, is among her former pupils.

“Jack was just a blond little bombshell of a fun-loving lad. He was great fun, from the word go.

“It was obvious, even from Year 7, that he had an identity already: he was Jack Laugher the diver. My mum, Sylvia Grice, taught him to swim, at Ripon Spa Baths. She said Jack never had his head above water. She was always telling him off for that. Mum taught him to swim, and then he jumped in off the side, and one of the lifeguards said, ‘You ought to try diving.’ The rest is history.

“In Year 7, we were doing a sports-science test: you measure how high kids can jump, and how long they can stay in plank position. We were in plank [a position similar to a push-up], and everyone else had collapsed in a heap after four or five minutes, some after 30 seconds.

Nine-and-a-half minutes, and Jack was still there, smiling, not breaking a sweat. Even at age 11, he had that core strength and mental toughness. Then the bell went - otherwise, who knows how long he might have gone on.

“He was obviously a league apart from everyone else. But he’s just so modest and unassuming. He wasn’t trying very hard, in an ‘I-have-to-win’ way. He was just smiling, and everyone was cheering him on.

“He’s just so normal. I remember him finishing his A levels. I was teaching tennis, and he just came over and started knocking up with one of the lads on the tennis courts. The lads were, ‘I’m playing with Jack Laugher.’ And I’m looking at Jack, thinking, you’re in the Olympics in a few weeks’ time. You could slip and break something.

“When he won the European and Commonwealth championships, the first thing he did when he got back to Ripon was to take the medals to my mum. He’s just a thoroughly, thoroughly good lad.”

David Morton (Heather Stanning’s teacher)

David Morton is head of PE at Gordonstoun school. He taught Heather Stanning, 31, who won gold in the coxless pairs rowing in 2012 and 2016.

“Heather was keen to do everything. She took all the opportunities that we presented to her and ran with them.

“She swam, and played hockey, netball, tennis. She could have given Andy Murray a game - could have warmed him up. Obviously, it’s a fantastic achievement, to win the gold in 2012 and then go back and win it again. But I’m not surprised, knowing Heather. She’s that sort of girl.

“I taught Heather all the time she was here. She did A-level PE with me. There was definitely a gradual increase in focus, in concentration and in her determination to succeed at whatever she was doing. It was just a solid accumulation of confidence and perseverance.

“We don’t do rowing here. But right near the end of Heather’s time at Gordonstoun, we got a rowing machine. I asked Heather to have a go. We set it to 2,000m, and off she went. She recorded a very good time. That was literally me looking at her and saying, ‘You’ve got long arms and legs - good levers for rowing.’

“It’s not always sunshine and warm temperatures in Scotland. But she was always happy to go out and do extra training sessions in all kinds of weathers. I don’t ever recall having to make her do something. She was always first in line: ‘Yeah, I can do that.’

“The school motto is Plus est en vous. ‘There’s more in you than you think’ - that’s how we translate it. Heather absolutely epitomised that.”

Kate Finch (Helen Glover’s teacher)

Kate Finch, retired head of PE at Humphry Davy School in Cornwall, recalls teaching Helen Glover, 30, who won gold in the coxless pairs with Heather Stanning in 2012 and 2016.

“She was one of those people you dream of teaching. She was phenomenally talented, utterly committed, utterly hardworking and utterly reliable.

“She was in every team at school - every single one that I ran: netball, athletics, swimming, rounders, tennis. You name it, she was on it. And, if she was on a team, you knew you were all right - you weren’t going to be thrashed. She was just one of those people who never gave up.

“She was willing to have a go at anything. She was just good fun. She was my daughter’s friend at school, and she came on holiday with us once. One day, we were cycling along the river, and someone fell in on their bike. Before you could blink, all 10 kids were rolling around in the mud in the river, Helen among them.

“She had a phenomenally supportive family. I don’t think I ever umpired a match that Helen was in that her mother didn’t attend. She wasn’t a mother who screeched or shouted. She just quietly supported.

“Her dad’s sporty. He was a full blue in rugby at Oxford. She’s a bright girl - the genes are there. She got good GCSEs: all As and Bs.

“She’s lucky to have been born into a family with good genes, a strong sporting and work ethic and the financial resources to support it.

“Although she left our school 14 years ago, she’s still very much part of it. We think she’s marvellous, and we’re very, very proud of her.”

Carol Smith (Siobhan-Marie O’Connor’s teacher)

Carol Smith, head of English at Ralph Allen School in Bath, taught Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, 20, who won silver in the women’s 200m individual swimming medley.

“Siobhan was very modest. She had a nice smile and a quiet sense of humour. She was popular in the class, because she was quite self-effacing. She never made a big thing of the fact that she was doing all this swimming and extra work.

“As a student, she wanted to do well. She wanted to achieve what she could, though she obviously had much fewer hours to study than other students. She’d arrive at school having already spent a couple of hours in the pool.

“She gained a B grade in her English AS level. Then she knew she had to make a decision: whether to go fully for the swimming or not. So she didn’t do her A levels - she left at the end of Year 12.

“In English, she enjoyed being able to give an opinion, being able to express herself. She was quietly confident in sharing her views with the rest of the class. She was prepared to come and put something of herself into the lesson.

“Because she was often off work for competitions, she did miss some of the actual teaching of some of the texts. But we’d have one-to-one catch-up sessions. She was a very bright young girl: she would have her own ideas. I was always impressed by how much she’d gleaned by herself.

“We studied the literature of the First World War: about people suffering and enduring. I’m not saying she was like somebody in the trenches, but it might be that there was something she could recognise about people having to endure and show resilience.”