The Mountbatten Sports Academy was established in 2019 and is focused around a four point development plan.
Academy Sports - Football, Rugby & Netball
High Performance Athletes
Academia
Business & Community Opportunities
Academy Sports
Within our academy sports we have created a structured training programme for Lower & Upper School students in Rugby, Football & Netball.
Sessions have become more structured with all students working towards a set ethos and philosophy created for each sport. All Mountbatten squads continue to compete at District, County and National level in our three focus sports and this is a common theme across a range of sports.
We formally launched the Sports Academy in October 2019 and there was a successful presentation for Upper School parents, an application and selection process, and the awarding of Sports Academy sportswear for our successful Upper School Academy students.
We appointed a group of Year 10 students to join the Upper School Academy, who would work closely with the faculty and gain access to strength & conditioning sessions, mentoring and opportunities to develop their leadership, coaching and officiating through the completion of NGB courses.
The purchase of high quality strength & conditioning equipment and the set up of a temporary S&C suite has enabled our students to access this facility and develop specific areas of their fitness.
High Performance Athletes
We have a number of students at Mountbatten who can be defined as High Performance Athletes who perform at National or International level.
Those students have been given the opportunity to be part of our High Performance programme.
We have networked with a number of leading sports universities; however, a strong link has been made with Bath University. This group of students have visited Bath University and accessed their first class facilities, whilst also raising aspirations for students who wish to join a top sporting university, in the future. We continue to work with Bath University and students, last academic year, were each given an individual action plan to work on based on the testing we conducted whilst at Bath University.
Those students will be supported to balance the commitment of their sporting endeavours and their academic studies to be successful on both fronts. As a school we will do this through liaising with educational sports bodies and NGB’s to create funding opportunities. This will support students and parents with potential funding streams that helps with attendance to training & competitions and purchase of equipment.
They will be further supported by having access to external providers who will be utilized to support students with others areas of their training including nutritionists, physiotherapists and sports psychologists.
Academia
As a faculty we have exceptional exam results for PE accredited courses that are well above national average.
We have experienced staff that are specialists in the delivery of those courses, which provide a fantastic platform for students to succeed and to move onto sporting careers.
We currently offer a number of accredited courses and they are:
AQA GCSE PE
AQA GCSE Dance
OCR Cambridge National Sport Studies Level 2
Level 2 Qualification in Community Sports Leadership(Offered in Year 10 Core PE)
We are continually developing our courses and looking to take on more opportunities for students to gain further qualifications.
We regularly provide opportunities for students to develop their coaching, leadership and officiating qualifications by offering a number of NGB courses, which we offer to our Upper School Academy students and to a number of other students. They include:
England Netball umpiring courses
FA 11vs11 Refereeing course
FA Junior Young Leaders Course
RFU Rugby Ready
Level 2 RFU Refereeing Award
Business & Community Opportunities
We have created a network of community club links to enable our students to develop their skills further in an external club. It's very important that if students develop a passion or natural ability in a sport that they have the access to external clubs to develop that further.
Each year we host a number of our community club representatives including colleges and universities at our Club Links & Further/Higher Education Evening.
This is an opportunity for our students to gather information from a range of external clubs, colleges, universities and scholarship companies. It gives them direct access to meet the representatives and gain invaluable information about their next step in their sporting journey.