16 | FEATURE: NEW TRENDS IN SPORT
while more recently Haileybury School in Hertfordshire announced the appointment of South African international Dirkie Chamberlain and England midfi elder Susannah Townsend, both of whom starred at the recent Hockey World Cup, as professional hockey coaches. There is an increasing belief that coaches
from an elite sporting background can help not only by training students to the next level of performance, but also by looking at things from a sports science and sports medicine point of view – and assessing and upgrading facilities at their schools according to these needs. Fitness is another key battleground
in the race for improvement. Over the summer break many schools will have given their students personal fi tness programmes to work on, and during the season it is common for students to receive at least one conditioning session a week. “Strength and conditioning are massive now,” Prior Park’s Rhys Gwilliam points out. “Conditioning in particular has become ever more important, especially in rugby where collisions have become heavier and the players need the muscle to prevent serious injury.” The quality of technology available
is also playing a part in advancing the value of coaching sessions. David Faulkner at Millfi eld believes that
“new technology has become increasingly signifi cant, and will become even more so in the future”. The Somerset school has recently introduced a fully integrated system to analyse performance across a range of school sports, and recruited a dedicated performance analysis leader to examine the data generated by the system. Once the match or training data has been
processed and analysed by the coach, it is then placed on the ‘Team Performance Exchange’ platform, where footage and data of individual and team performances can be shared and accessed by pupils. As Faulkner points out, “the system ties in with the school’s wider mobile learning policy. Every pupil has a tablet and the system makes use of this and the way the school has gone digital.” Technology has also helped to raise the profi le of school sport, moving it away from newsletters and scoreboards and into a more interactive era, with social media and school websites providing up-to-the-minute information on fi xtures, results and performances. So as students up and down the country
prepare for their winter sport programme, whether or not they can fi nd that missing lacrosse stick or remember the intricacies of the new scrum rules, it is likelier than ever before that advances in coaching, facilities and technology will give them the chance to fulfi l their potential. ISS
RISING STAR #4
›› Name: Luke Hammond ›› Age: 15 ›› School: Millfi eld ›› Sport(s): Tennis, cricket
›› Sporting heroes: "Roger Federer: poetry in motion. Also former England cricket captain Wally Hammond, whose professional career lasted three decades"
›› Achievements: A tennis National Junior Champion in both singles and doubles, Luke has represented GB and was Young Player of the Year for 2011. He has just won his fi rst international competition in Fiji, and his current world ranking is 680. As a cricketer, he has opened the bowling for Somerset
›› Hopes for the future: "I aim to rank in the tennis top 100 within the next two years"
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W:
ie-today.co.uk | T: @ie_today
1. Hockey is a strong suit at Millfield, where former Olympic gold medallist David Faulkner is Director of Sport
2. England World Cup star Susannah Townsend has joined Dirkie Chamberlain on the hockey staff at Haileybury
3. Millfield has introduced a system for analysing
performance across a range of school sports
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Read a related story: click here
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