ATHLETICS Clubs
Guided by feedback from families and insights from students in Grade 5 – 12, during the 2024 – 2025 year, Crofton House took a fresh look at athletics, exploring what’ s working well and where there’ s room to grow. This year, this led to thoughtful enhancements across the School.
In the Junior School, our commitment remains centred on providing meaningful opportunities that align with our curricular offerings and our Teaching Games for Understanding framework: an inquiry-based, student-centred approach to physical education that prioritizes decision-making and game understanding. We continue to see healthy participation numbers across all programming, reflecting strong student engagement and enthusiasm. To support this growth, we expanded access to the Senior School Athletics Centre, with particular attention given to Middle School athletics and their evolving needs. We also introduced a new Grade 6 – 7 badminton program, which was warmly received and consistently well attended. These enhancements have strengthened our overall athletics pathway, and we look forward to further profiling and building upon these changes in the year ahead.
Here are the highlights from the new offerings in the Senior School. Reflecting a continued commitment to listening and evolving, three new Winter Term co-curriculars have been introduced: climbing, skiing, and snowboarding, along with strength and conditioning— expanding opportunities for students to engage in athletics in ways that reflect their interests and goals.
CLIMBING CLUB
In its pilot year, the Climbing Club invited Senior School students to challenge themselves both on campus and at The Hive Heights, a local climbing gym. With biweekly visits to The Hive alongside training and theory sessions at school, students built skills, confidence in belaying and tackling new climbing routes, and a strong sense of teamwork. The season also included three ISABC competitions: bouldering at the Richmond Olympic Oval, top rope climbing at Brentwood School, and a final bouldering event at the Oval.
“ We have a lot of team sports at CHS, which is always good, but we’ ve been adding more individual sports recently. I think that’ s kind of a nice switch-up to things: you’ re still part of a community in climbing and have connections with others, but being able to be on the wall and grow your skills individually, I think it’ s also something that sets it apart,” explained Club Co-Captain Cassie, Grade 12.
A unique sport, climbing is both social and accessible, as everyone can push their limits at their own pace. Whether a student made it a quarter of the way up a route or reached the top, teammates were always cheering each other on. With different routes side by side at The Hive, students could also share ideas, offer advice, and celebrate each other’ s improvements. Along the way, the club fostered strong connections across grades as students encouraged one another, bonded over shared challenges, and celebrated each other’ s milestones.
“ Everyone just started to really meld together,” shared Club Co-Captain Emily, Grade 12.“ Especially as the season progressed and we got into more competitions, we got to a point where everyone was cheering on each other. That camaraderie extended beyond our team to other teams as well!”
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