A whole new ball game
Learners at the Windhoek Gymnasium private school are not only advised to participate in sport but also taught how to balance it with academic success.
School sports play a crucial role in the development of sport in general, but the lack of facilities at most schools in Namibia hampers such development.
The Windhoek Gymnasium private school has taken the bull by its horns by installing a state-of-the-art artificial turf rugby field, which is the first in Africa.
Sport Wrap sat down with the school's managing director, Colette Rieckert, to talk sport at the school and its facilities.
Rieckert said since they started with the planning of the school, one of her important missions was to present sport in a professional manner to the kids in order to give them good coaching and good exposure.
“Nowadays the kids can make a career in sport and we need to expose them to national and international tournaments, but further than that sport is such an important social tool that makes it easy for kids to know how to build their character and how to work together as a team and work well together, so that is the role of sport in our school,” she explained briefly.
She said they first investigated the difference between international and South African sport schools and Namibian school sports, which according to her did not compare very well at that stage.
She added that they then looked at those schools as they wanted to see how they operated, and “what we have seen is that there is certainly a lot of better preparation in the gymnasium and the whole manner in which the kids are conditioned, so we have looked into the ways they do that and also how to optimally prepare a team.”
“So from the start we looked at what are the best ways to prepare a team and we have a biokineticist and high-performance trainers who start working with the kids before the season and prepare them physically for the season, so that is why injuries are there but a lot less because we keep them busy all year,” she said.
She mentioned that sport is taken very seriously at the school and all the leaners are encouraged to get involved in the sport of their choice.
“We encourage all the kids to be involved in sports so we establish what sport they are interested in, so from pre-primary we make them aware of the importance of sports and in our physical education training we focus on the XLR8 programme that comes from Australia,” she said.
XLR8 is recognised as an industry leader in sport, fitness, physical education and functional training.
She said all the teachers who offered physical education at the school had trained through the XLR8 programme.
Sport code participation
The school competes in athletics, cricket, rugby, netball and hockey.
“This time of the year we have athletics and cricket that kids compete in and during the second term we have netball, rugby and hockey and then in the third term cricket and athletics again.
“We are also looking at developing some more sports, and in the primary school that we are building we are planning on building a synthetic soccer field with an athletics track so that we can also host our own events,” she said.The school now has a hockey field, four netball courts, an artificial rugby field and five cricket nets.
Competition
Exposing learners to international events is important for the school and according to Rieckert the learners gain a lot of experience from such tournaments.
“When we started participating in South Africa, we knew that we had to expose the kids to larger tournaments so we take the kids on tours to South Africa at least twice a year and again this year from 26 March to 6 April almost all our teams are travelling to South Africa and the third rugby team is travelling to Zimbabwe, so we take competitions very seriously,” she said.
She added that their teams are now well recognised at all the events that they participate in, “although it costs a lot of money it is very important to send the kids and that is why we try to do it as many times as we can.”
The school has been receiving attention from all over the world for putting up the first artificial rugby turf in Africa.
“What we see is all the attention from all over the world where people are asking, because it is only the best clubs in Europe that have such facilities; and we are already attracting the best players in the country because of our performance in the past years,” she said.
She maintained that the school was not just about sport, but also about teaching children how to balance sport and academic life.
“We want to make sure that the learners perform very well both in sport and academics, so we highly emphasise that,” she said.
KAINO NGHITONGO
The Windhoek Gymnasium private school has taken the bull by its horns by installing a state-of-the-art artificial turf rugby field, which is the first in Africa.
Sport Wrap sat down with the school's managing director, Colette Rieckert, to talk sport at the school and its facilities.
Rieckert said since they started with the planning of the school, one of her important missions was to present sport in a professional manner to the kids in order to give them good coaching and good exposure.
“Nowadays the kids can make a career in sport and we need to expose them to national and international tournaments, but further than that sport is such an important social tool that makes it easy for kids to know how to build their character and how to work together as a team and work well together, so that is the role of sport in our school,” she explained briefly.
She said they first investigated the difference between international and South African sport schools and Namibian school sports, which according to her did not compare very well at that stage.
She added that they then looked at those schools as they wanted to see how they operated, and “what we have seen is that there is certainly a lot of better preparation in the gymnasium and the whole manner in which the kids are conditioned, so we have looked into the ways they do that and also how to optimally prepare a team.”
“So from the start we looked at what are the best ways to prepare a team and we have a biokineticist and high-performance trainers who start working with the kids before the season and prepare them physically for the season, so that is why injuries are there but a lot less because we keep them busy all year,” she said.
She mentioned that sport is taken very seriously at the school and all the leaners are encouraged to get involved in the sport of their choice.
“We encourage all the kids to be involved in sports so we establish what sport they are interested in, so from pre-primary we make them aware of the importance of sports and in our physical education training we focus on the XLR8 programme that comes from Australia,” she said.
XLR8 is recognised as an industry leader in sport, fitness, physical education and functional training.
She said all the teachers who offered physical education at the school had trained through the XLR8 programme.
Sport code participation
The school competes in athletics, cricket, rugby, netball and hockey.
“This time of the year we have athletics and cricket that kids compete in and during the second term we have netball, rugby and hockey and then in the third term cricket and athletics again.
“We are also looking at developing some more sports, and in the primary school that we are building we are planning on building a synthetic soccer field with an athletics track so that we can also host our own events,” she said.The school now has a hockey field, four netball courts, an artificial rugby field and five cricket nets.
Competition
Exposing learners to international events is important for the school and according to Rieckert the learners gain a lot of experience from such tournaments.
“When we started participating in South Africa, we knew that we had to expose the kids to larger tournaments so we take the kids on tours to South Africa at least twice a year and again this year from 26 March to 6 April almost all our teams are travelling to South Africa and the third rugby team is travelling to Zimbabwe, so we take competitions very seriously,” she said.
She added that their teams are now well recognised at all the events that they participate in, “although it costs a lot of money it is very important to send the kids and that is why we try to do it as many times as we can.”
The school has been receiving attention from all over the world for putting up the first artificial rugby turf in Africa.
“What we see is all the attention from all over the world where people are asking, because it is only the best clubs in Europe that have such facilities; and we are already attracting the best players in the country because of our performance in the past years,” she said.
She maintained that the school was not just about sport, but also about teaching children how to balance sport and academic life.
“We want to make sure that the learners perform very well both in sport and academics, so we highly emphasise that,” she said.
KAINO NGHITONGO
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