David Dome: Wellington Phoenix general manager on New Zealand getting its first elite sports school

New Zealand's first-ever specialised elite sports school is set to open its doors next year, giving future athletes a space to study while building their sports careers.

This charter school will be run by the New Zealand Performance Academy Aotearoa and be based at Upper Hutt's NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport.

Wellington Phoenix general manager David Dome says plenty of research was carried out into developing this programme. 

"We looked at how the Americans did it, how they did it in Europe and Spain and Italy, and it was really combining education and sports - and it was really hard for us to do that at the time, given that there was only the state school alternative that we couldn't really be part of."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New Zealand is getting its first dedicated sports school. It's
going to be an Upper Hut. It's a charter school.
It's going to open its doors to years eleven to
thirteen students in January and they're going to focus on
elite sports training as well as the books. First it's
offering football and rugby, but then other sports in the
future hopefully. The Wellington Phoenix Football Academy are involved in
Wellington Phoenix General manager David Domus with us.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, David good, that's a noon Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Why did you guys decide to get involved here.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, we were asked by our board, the Phoenix Board,
maybe five six years to go to say, look, how
can we take the academy our very successful coming to
the next step. What do we need to do? What
can we do to make it better? Make it more successful?
Are you still there things in the United State? Can
you hear me? Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
You sorry? We just lost your carry on.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm just saying so. When we were asked by the board,
this is the Phoenix Board, to examine how it can
make our academy even more successful than it is. And
we did a bit of research around the world, looked
how the Americans did it how they did it in
Europe and Spain and Italy, and it was really combining
education in sports, and so it was very hard for
us to do that at the time, given that there
was only the state school alternative, which we couldn't really
be a part of. But now with charter charter schools

(01:07):
and the initiatives that have come in, there perfect opportunity
and then we jumped at it.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Does it make a difference like that if you set
up something like this, do you actually get much better
footballers as a result.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, what you do is you get to integrate their
education and their training. So what we're finding at the
moment the academy, we've got kids training at six o'clock
in the morning, We've got kids training at seven o'clock
at night. That's not ideal for physiology. But the second component,
which is probably more important, is that the kids will
be you know, we'll be integrating sport into the education.
So it should keep them more engaged, It should keep
them more interested in the education, and that should tune

(01:39):
out not only better sports people at the other end,
but also better educated academics as well. So how do
you split the day, Well, in the days, it's pretty
much a normal school day. Well, you know, we're still
being very clear that it's got to be a quality education.
We're not going to skimp on that. And the same
way the academy doesn't skimp on the training we do here,
we're not going to skimp on the education. It's going
to be top quality. So it's going to look pretty

(02:00):
very similar. There will be modules throughout the day where
I'll go off and do their own specific code training,
whether that's football with us, or rugby or cricket with
Cricket Wellington or whoever we get. We partner with codes
we take up. They will go do some stuff during
the day. It probably at a better time than than
six o'clock in the morning at o'clock at night. So
all things being equal, I mean it will look very
very similar, but it will just be more tailored to

(02:22):
a sports student.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
You've got spaces available for next year.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
We've only got one hundred we've seen we're going to
cap ourselves that a one hundred. We don't want to
go any bigger than that because we want to be able. Again,
school class numbers are going to be crucial for success.
We don't want to be oversubscribed in the first year.
We've already got eighteen to twenty kids in our boarding
house here at the Academy at Wartington, Phoenix, so we're
pretty sure they we're probably going to get the majority
of those kids come across. There's not that many spaces

(02:46):
left and ever since we announced it this morning, we've
already got about twenty application of students who want to join.
So look it's going to be I think we'll be
able to get good numbers. We're not, like I said,
we're not going to go huge, but we'll get to
our hundred I think brilliant.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Hey, well done you, thanks very much, David David Domee,
Wellington Phoenix General Manager. I bet there's a few football
clubs would love to go to that.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
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