No: DSSE1107

8 Sept 2011

St Charles leads the way for new Discovery SharkSmart intake

Durban – Despite having been slightly late out of the blocks initially St Charles College in Pietermaritzburg became the first of the new intake of schools in 2011 to be accredited as a Discovery SharkSmart School of Excellence and were hotly followed by Crawford College La Lucia and Kearsney College as the trio follow in the footsteps of this year's first three accredited schools DHS, Hillcrest High and Maritzburg College.

The three schools successfully met the increasingly popular programme’s eight medical and safety criteria bringing the total number of schools to have achieved the feat this year to six.

“This really means a lot to us!” said St Charles’ sports coordinator and the driving force behind the programme Dieter Lugte. “We’ve put a lot into ensuring things got done in time after joining a little late and so to have received our accreditation already is fantastic.”

“It is something we really believe in and is something we’ve been very keen to be a part of for a very long time now.”

“Now that we’re accredited it really helps us show everyone, especially the parents of our boys, just how serious we are about ensuring we follow sound medical and safety guidelines and that our pupils wellbeing is of utmost importance to us,” he added.

Despite being one of the smaller rugby schools in the programme Crawford College La Lucia have found immense benefit from their involvement over the past two years and have gone the extra mile to ensure that each of their pupils benefits in one way or another.

“The programme obviously is predominantly rugby focused so it’s been our challenge to try make it relevant to other sports and activities but there is a lot of useful information that comes out of the programme,” said sports coordinator Pete Deppe.

“Having been accredited for the past two years now really helps us show everyone out there that we do play sport and being a part of such a well-known programme gives us a platform to be on the same level as some of the bigger sporting schools,” he added.

Having coached the U18 KZN Craven Week team this year Kearsney College’s Barend Steyn knows all too well the importance of educating our youth on certain issues that are sometimes missed by the regular school syllabus.

“We’ve been involved with Dr. Glen Hagemann and the rest of his team at Sharks Medical for the past eight years now and so we fully appreciate the importance of being a part of such a programme,” said Steyn.

“Those working in a school environment can’t be expected to be an expert in everything and so to have people come in who have real expertise in these very important fields has been fantastic.”

“We’re very proud to have completed the accreditation process for the second year in a row and as long as the programme is around we will be involved because we really believe in it and what it aims to achieve,” he added.

More information can be found at www.sharksmart.co.za

ENDS

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