This week the Global Sport Academy partnership with the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division officially announced that the program will be expanding for the 2021-2022 school year.
That means the partnership is ready to expand to new sports, while also becoming an important part of Carlton Comprehensive High School.
“It’s fantastic we are really excited with the continued expansion of this with the Grade 7 and 8 program and initially golf and multi-sport in the next year or so it’s going to be exciting for sure,” Carlton Principal Jeff Court said.
The multi-sport program currently has a hockey focus with national calibre coaches, and plans are underway to bring that same passion as the program expands into golf and programming for Grade 7 and 8 students for the 2021-2022 school year.
The students in the Grade 7 and 8 programs will stay at a home elementary school with Carlton acting as hub with transportation arrangements for those students.
Court explained that most of the work on the sport end is being by done Global Sport representatives.
“Our end of things is the curriculum and really the meat and potatoes of this curriculum from Global and the work that they are doing really is just focused on leadership, sports psychology and sport nutrition and what does it mean to be a 24/7 athlete and even beyond that. That boils into citizenship skills and so on. So there is definitely a sports specific component but from the schooling side that is one part, but all of those other areas are just as vital if not more vital to how they roll this out to the kids,” Courts said.
He explained that one of his favourite aspects of the program was the focus on the individual as well as the sport.
According to Court the expansion is being timed for optimal usage.
“It has been something that people are really excited about. It is an area that I think there is a lot of interest in around and that is partly why you are seeing it expand the way that you are seeing it. But on the other end it’s also one of those situations where you want to make sure that we are rolling it out in a way that people get the most value out of it too,” Court said.
He explained that Global would be pushing registration beginning in March.
“We have obviously announced that it is official and it’s expanding but they are currently in the works with that rollout of doing a registration push and getting the word out about what it’s about because there is lots of buzz. I can’t even tell you the number of questions I have had in regards to people interested,” he added.
He explained that the goal of the March rollout is to get the next steps figured out.
In addition to Sask Rivers and Global Sports, the partnership also includes the Western Hockey League’s Prince Albert Raiders.
“There is a really cool mentorship athlete piece that can happen there because the Raiders when they are attending school and living in Prince Albert they attend Carlton and I think that’s an important thing to look at there as well with our young hockey players. The opportunities for mentorship between those programs too.”
For more information on the Global Sport Academy visit their website.
