• Elite Sport and Education Programme
  (For athletes that have representative honours in their sport at county, district or national levels.)
• Excellence in Sport and Education Programme
  (For athletes who want to achieve excellence in their chosen sports at club level.)
• Elite Golf Programme
  (For athletes who want to work towards becoming professional golfers.)

Why Study on the Excellence in Sport and Education Programme?

"My daughter has high ambitions for her rugby union career. She  has represented the county since she was 15, she is also on the England Centre of Excellence programme at Darlington Mowden Park. To keep up with this challenging programme, it is important she remains at peak physical fitness and has time to train as well as keep her with her A level studies. The ESEP Programme means that she gets timetabled sessions to make this happen. She also gets valuable mentoring and support from the staff and guidance towards meeting specific goals." Parent of Year 13 Student

Prince Henry’s has a superb reputation for discovering and nurturing elite sporting talent with many students progressing to represent their country in their respective sports. Often talented sportsmen and women between the ages of 16-18 face the dilemma of having to pick between pursuing their dream of becoming an elite athlete or focusing on their educational studies. Pre-school training sessions can lead to students not fully engaging in lessons, due to tiredness or fatigue and post-school training sessions can lead to students finding themselves staying up until late in the evening completing school work which has an impact both on their recovery from the training sessions and their readiness for school the next day.

The various ESEP programmes at Prince Henry’s aim to provide a supportive environment where talented students can achieve their full sporting potential at the same time as being able to reach their full educational potential by allowing them the flexibility to access structured training and athlete development sessions during curriculum time within the school day.

Further benefits of the ESEP at Prince Henry’s are that it allows the flexibility for existing coaches from the athlete’s clubs or team to come in during the set ESEP periods and work with their athletes or to arrange for the athlete to train away from the school site at their existing high performance centres.

Associated Partners to the ESEP Programme:

Course Content

• Strength and Conditioning
• Sports Specific Training
• Technical and Tactical Development (Analysis of performance)
• Sports Psychology
• Sports Nutrition
• Mentoring Sessions
• Athletes’ lifestyle advice
• Career support and sporting pathway guidance

Progression Routes

The programme’s primary goal is to allow students to progress through representing their club or district to region or country in their chosen sport. On successful completion of the ESEP, a student can also progress to employment and/or continue on to higher education.

Entry Requirements

It is essential that students have an appropriate professional attitude towards achieving excellence or becoming an elite athlete in their chosen sport. Students considering the ESEP course should have representative honours in their sport at club, county, district or national levels. Individual circumstances will be considered.