Performance Excellence Pathway

St Peter’s sees sport as a vehicle to support academic achievement, personal and school-wide growth, wellbeing and leadership qualities.

St Peter’s PEP athletes having a yoga class with Elite Rower Sophie Mackenzie

Athlete development at St Peter’s is based around improving knowledge and understanding of the key elements that contribute to a high level of training and performance. It aims to empower athletes and their coaches, by providing workshops and insight into the elite sporting pathways and systems that are in place within school and beyond school level sport.

Here's what current students had to say about the programme:

"I like being part of a group that had like-minded people, who all encouraged and celebrated each others success"  

"PEP its a good environment to be in as a young person who wants to achieve their sporting goals"  

"I really enjoyed it this year and it really improved my stability and movement technique. It also helped me gain confidence after my injury. I want to continue this improvement into next year."

There are numerous pressures for our athletes such as academia, extracurricular commitments and life outside of school. Through the Performance Excellence Pathway (PEP) we aim to develop our athletes by giving guidance and support, to create a well-balanced athlete that is not only improving to higher levels in their chosen sporting discipline, but also developing across all aspects of life.

The following four pillars are the basis of the programme;

• Competence - To help athletes improve their skills, but going beyond teaching sport-specific techniques and tactics to include informing athletes about healthy training and lifestyle habits related to areas such as nutrition, rest and recovery, and injury prevention. This allows athletes to fully develop their potential and take responsibility for the skills needed to succeed
• Confidence - Athletes must learn to perform under pressure in competitions and endure repeated failures when learning complex sport skills. It is important they have strong self-belief in their own ability to execute techniques successfully and when it matters. It’s about teaching athletes strategies for overcoming self-doubt and frustration and building their confidence through methods such as positive self-talk and imagery.
• Connection - Part of an athlete’s development is gaining the trust and respect of others in his or her sport network. All sports, whether individual or team, require some level of cooperation with and support from others. Teams learn and perform best when there is a high level of trust and commitment to common goals. Even when training and competing alone, athletes need to learn how to receive and use feedback from others and participate with other athletes.
• Character - Building athlete character to establish core values and standards that clearly describe what is expected and what behaviours are acceptable.

The PEP co-ordinator helps mentor and manage the athletes development by organising the following on a group or individual basis:

• Assist with long term development planning and goal setting after assessment interviews
• Muscular/skeletal screening to identify areas requiring further development
• NZ performance sport pathways and performance criteria
• Strength and conditioning programming including support during 2x lunchtime sessions per week
• Performance psychology and nutrition group sessions 
• Introduction to Drug Free Sport NZ
• Athlete support system
• Social media, public speaking and leadership workshops
• Coordinate physiotherapy support if required

 The PEP programme costs $150.00 per term and is charged to your school account