We recently took a small group of pupils to experience the environment of St Georges Park, the FA National Football Center. Being such an elite venue, where the England Football team were based during Euro 2020, it was a great privilege to be allowed to visit and train there.

The day started with a strength and conditioning session in the gym, using the facilities that the England players used during the Euros. The pupils then undertook some performance profiling, performing a vertical jump on a force plate and measuring their jump heights. We were fortunate to have the current England players scores on a whiteboard in front of us, with some of our pupils beating a couple of members of the current England squad! After measuring their power to weight ratio’s using the Watt bikes, the pupils took part in a hydrotherapy recover session. Again, this was the same pool that England players had put social media posts up about when they were in there. Pupils did some stretching activities in the pool, a hot and cold contrast pool and had a quick go on the underwater treadmill.

Hopefully pupils enjoyed the day. Their attitude all day was impeccable and they were a real credit to our school!