High Performance Sport

At Westminster, we love and value our sport. We offer a wide range of sporting activities for students to participate in, providing quality opportunities for them to achieve more than they thought possible. Like all subjects, students will demonstrate a wide range of capability. Programs are provided for high performing student-athletes, as well as the great majority of those who participate for skill development, enjoyment, fitness and School spirit. Irrespective of the program students are selected into, they will be provided with opportunities to develop their physical skills, mental resilience, and social awareness. Lessons learned on the sporting field should serve us well in life.

Our High Performance Sport program includes:

• Providing quality programs (best-practice training sequence, load, content and methodology) and competition opportunities
• Providing the best coaches and managers available, and supporting them to develop along with student-athletes
• Students who are professional in their sporting behaviours, are punctual, in correct uniform, receptive to coaches, play with intensity and reflect our School values at all times.

Program Streams - Development and High Performance

With Westminster’s revamped sports program, we have emerged with the two distinct arms in our sport, Sport Development and High Performance. Delineating the two types of programs makes it clearer on expectation and caters specifically for all abilities and levels of commitment. Sport Development is the much larger participation stream with high numbers and many choices. The level of time commitment required for these programs is less than the High Performance ones, and the driving objectives are skill development, fun, fitness, and School spirit.

Westminster encourages every student to be part of its sports program in balance with their commitments to academics, performing arts, and other school activities.

Students will be ability streamed if the competition allows for different grades, with the High Performance arm beginning in Year 6. At Westminster, we do our very best to recruit a combination of teaching staff and outside coaches with experience and skill in coaching their specific sport to provide students with quality coaching in all grades.

Like in other subject areas at Westminster, there is provision for physically talented students and coaches to be extended via our High Performance program. The time commitment is significantly greater in our High Performance program than in our Sport Development program, and the aim is to extend capable students to more challenging training and competition experiences, and link them to performance pathways out of school.

High Performance (HP) programs include:

• Pre-season Strength and Conditioning programs
• Full season Strength and Conditioning programs
• Specialist Sports Academies in Football and Netball with more planned in the near future
• HP Pre-season Camps and Training Days
• Support servicing for student-athletes and their families to include Sport Psychology, Nutrition and Wellbeing
• Tailored athlete Load Management and Wellbeing mentoring
• Student contributions back to the School (e.g. training and coaching of junior students)

Top quality experienced and qualified Head, Assistant, and Specialist Coaches are actively sourced to run these programs.

Another element to our HP programs is service. Students in High Performance programs are expected to be role models for their sport and involve themselves in the whole School program, as well as contribute to the Sport Development program by coaching come’n’try sessions, attending occasional training sessions or matches, or organising lunchtime activities in the junior grades and in the Preparatory School. In the Senior years, a shared goal for First Team students and coaches is to achieve outcome success, and one of the key metrics for this is a favourable win:loss ratio. Therefore, Westminster expects all Years 10 to 12 students to commit to Westminster first, above other Club teams for their particular sport if it is offered.

One of Westminster’s unique offerings is our High Performance Sport Family Workshop Program. This caters for students in SASI, State, and National Programs with a daily training environment, as well as students in SANFL U16 and 18 Team Programs, Premier League and PL Reserves Netball Programs, or their equivalent in other sports. This is a tailored, pre-elite athlete program pitched at students who are on track to progress to sport at an elite level. The group meets three or four evenings per year, for a duel speaker format involving guest speakers who have or have had an experience with professional sport. Guests include professional athletes, professional coaches, and service providers (psychologists, dieticians, fitness coaches) who have worked at elite levels. The aim is to prepare our student-athletes for potential life as an elite sportsperson.