Opening ceremony sees extreme athletes put new sports facility through its paces
Saturday 22nd September saw the opening of ACS Egham International School’s brand new Woodlee Sports Centre, a state-of-the art sports’ facility designed to take sports education to new levels of expertise and development at the school.
Head of School, Jeremy Lewis opens ACS Egham’s new Sports Centre, with special guests Tim Emmett and Bonita Norris, sports staff and students.
World beating athletes joined ACS Egham students, teachers and parents at the opening event and included Tim Emmett, top UK extreme sports athlete and one of the few people in the world to pilot a ‘wing-suit’; plus Bonita Norris, the youngest British women to reach the summit of Mount Everest; and current British Judo Champion, Jonathan Pursey, and his brother, former five times British Judo Champion, Matthew Pursey.
The athletes spoke of their experiences and gave demonstrations of their skills using some of the school’s new equipment – not least the show-stopping adaptive climbing wall which, as it name suggests, can be adapted and changed to add challenge for all levels of proficiency and age.
Built to extend sports provision across the school, the new centre enables a wider variety of activities to be offered, and a greater level of personal development. A key focus of the centre, however, is to underpin and enhance changes to the school’s sporting curriculum as it adds the new International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Sports, Exercise and Health Science Course to its academic programme, an option specifically designed for students who wish to develop a specialism in sports and sports science.
Woodlee Sports Centre has been designed with the very latest technologies to help students reach their individual and team goals. These include ‘Game Breaker’ video analysis, which allows students/coaches to watch, analyse, and perfect their technique stance in real time; while ‘AirPlay’ enables wireless streaming of videos and music through multi channels, including Ipad, and laptops and which, along with permanent flat screen monitors, enable continual assessment of students’ work and performance.
For gym and dance students ‘Fitlinks’, an online fitness programme, allows users to view progress from anywhere with online access, and has been included to enhance both team and individual fitness beyond the school premises.
Extra-curricular activities available through the Woodlee Sports Centre will span wall climbing, fitness training, badminton, street hockey, indoor football, yoga, pilates, volleyball, basketball, and dance, among others.
Head of School Jeremy Lewis commented:
“The opening of our new sports centre follows conveniently on the heels of the 2012 Olympics which have instigated a resurgence of interest in sports across numerous disciplines. Our new facilities will enable us to maximise this interest to the longterm well-being of all our students whether it leads to an individual sport’s specialism, a wider career in sports science or training, or simply general well-being.”
Education Insights 