A key aspect of every PSA Rugby Academy programme is fun and ensuring every player is as happy, safe and settled as they can be in what is often a new environment for them.
Significant research and analysis have shown the value of fun in the ability of young athletes to perform, and right from the off at each PSA Rugby Academy programme, our highly trained staff are working to create a fun, positive and respectful environment for the playing group as a whole. With up to 150 players from different ages, backgrounds, abilities and places at an Academy, this can be a daunting task but with years of quality operational experience behind us, our philosophy and a robust programme has been developed to achieve this key objective.
The fun environment also depends on the buy-in of our players and their parents long before they arrive at the Academy venue. Throughourpersonalisedbooking process and pre-Academy communications, we look to fully engage players and their parents with the programme content, matching this to their reasons for choosing PSA Academies. Having players who are happy to come to camp and are committed to learning as part of a wider, motivated group is an important foundation block for our programme modules.
The delivery of the fun environment is also achieved by ;
- making the players comfortable with their surroundings and each other
- positively challenging them right through the programme with activities that encourage leadership, teamwork and creativity
- including leisure activities that mix enjoyment and the key learning focuses that underpin the programme as a whole (C.A.R.D.S. based – see the PersonalDevelopment Blog Post for more information)
Our Operations Manager Cory Brown has worked with our coaching team and operational partners Xplore over the last few years to develop programme activities that focus on engaging players and trying to ensure their best possible involvement in, and enjoyment of, the PSA Academies experience ;
« As a team and business, we’re hugely committed to the development of the young players that attend our Academies, with the enjoyment of the game and the camaraderie of the group as a unit central to that. With a significant number of the players attending our Academies having never stayed at a residential camp before, it is especially important that these young people are fully supported right from the start by our staff. PSA Rugby Academies have a high staff to player ratio (min 1 to 25) and with our training and programme structures, we ensure that we quickly create a respectful bond with our players. Getting the group to gel and develop collectively is also an early focus, with fun introduction games up front in the programme to ensure players are getting involved, starting to discover more about each and develop friendships. A very clear structure of age groupings also helps to ensure that players are matched with their own peers throughout the programme. »
Whilst some of the add on activities may vary by venue, the standard PSA Rugby Academy programme includes a wide variety of fun group activitiesincludingScraphead Challenge, Bravo Bravo Hotel Foxtrot, Indoor PSA Challenge and Rugby Quiz. Discipline is a necessary and important part of the programme, with every player attending having signed the Camp Rules with their parents pre-arrival. Our camp management team will communicate clearly with the entire group at each Academy around standards and expectations, with a generally very positive response by players to being treated as mature and ambitious players, looking to develop. Our dailyKangaroo Court is a fun, player-led platform for staff and players to engage around day-to-day happenings on the camp programme, ensuring that any collective messaging around discipline is balanced by a more light-hearted sharing of the things that may not have gone so well that day for either staff or players!
