We are delighted to announce the appointment of Mr Keith Fowles as our new Director of Sport. Mr Fowles joins the School from Ipswich School and has vast amounts of experience in developing competitive sports programmes that have achieved national success.
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Our new Director of Sport, Keith Fowles comes to Birkenhead School with a vast amount of experience in developing competitive sports programmes that have achieved national success. He has completed the highest rugby coaching qualification; RFU Level 4 coaching award, and has RFU Coach, Educator and Mentor qualifications. These courses gave Mr Fowles coaching tools that are transferable across all sports and in turn will enable him to improve the level of coaching and teaching in all of our focus sports.
Mr Fowles joins the School from Ipswich School in Suffolk where he led the Boys Rugby Team to national success. Whilst at Ipswich he was also involved with the Boys and Girls Under 18 Indoor Hockey Teams who made the National Finals four years in a row.
Prior to teaching, Mr Fowles had a strong playing career having played rugby at professional and semi-professional level, notable playing at county level for North Midlands and Staffordshire. Mr Fowles also captained the North England Students. It might be interesting to note that in his early school years Mr Fowles was surprisingly small for his age however he was never deterred from participating in sport due to the encouragement and enthusiasm of his coaches. Mr Fowles hopes to emulate the same qualities he received from his coaches now as Director of Sport at Birkenhead School
During his undergraduate degree Mr Fowles became aware of the opportunities that teaching and coaching could offer him and he was very determined to develop these skills. Due to an injury to his knee and advancing years, for a sportsman, Mr Fowles chose to follow his coaching and teaching ambitions to pass on his love of sports and to develop the next generation. Mr Fowles is dedicated to personal development; he is currently completing a postgraduate diploma in Sport which will lead on to him beginning an MA in Training.
Mr Fowles will be utilising the skills he learnt during courses such as the England Hockey Teachers Course and the P.E Teachers ECB Cricket Course to the sports available at Birkenhead School. Every student at Birkenhead School will benefit from Mr Fowles’ knowledge in strength and conditioning and he gained the Olympic Weightlifting Certification to aid the performance and participation of students.
Mr Fowles promotes mass participation of students in sport and has three key pillars to his approach to coaching: participation, progress and performance. He strongly believes that large numbers of students enjoying and having fun whilst participating in sport will result in every student improving and progressing in their sporting abilities. This approach will result in some students being able to then progress their abilities to performance levels. Mr Fowles emphasises that his coaching and teaching will cater for all levels of ability. He wishes to endorse and ensure that the students are having fun, are safe, develop organisational skills, maintain high standard of manners and that there is mutual respect with teammates and opponents whilst competing and taking part in sporting activities.
Mr Fowles philosophy to teaching and coaching is:
‘I want to provide a fun, safe environment for pupils and staff to work together to help every individual reach their full potential. An environment where the individual works hard for the team and the team works hard for the individual. To provide an environment where individuals participate to be fit and healthy for life's challenges and also can aspire to be an elite performer, if they wish.’
Our new Director of Sport understands that mistakes happen, he believes that it is more important that the students learn and grow from slip-ups in life.
Mr Fowles spoke about his expectations for the School’s PE and Sports department:
“The school has a strong sporting tradition and we want to maintain and improve on that to give every individual the opportunity to reach their full potential.”
Mr Fowles is looking forward to announcing the development of the School’s Sports Department with the introduction of new strength and conditioning equipment and SOCS, (a dedicated website to the School’s sporting activities and fixtures)
Birkenhead School would like to wish Mr Fowles and his staff every success for the forthcoming years and would also like to wish all our students and sport teams good luck in their sporting pursuits.
You can follow Mr Fowles on Twitter @Birkenhead_DoS to get updates on the School’s sporting activities and fixtures.
To find out about the opportunities available in Seniors and Sixth Form, please come to our
Seniors & Sixth Form Open Evening that is taking place on
Thursday 3rd October from 5.30pm - 8.30pm. Further information is available
online or alternatively by contacting Ms Julie Hopper, Seniors Admissions.