The Whitgift School is an independent day school offering all-round education of the highest quality for 1,200 boys between the ages of ten and 18.

The Whitgift Sports and Conference Centre provides some of the finest integrated indoor facilities available at any school. In addition to the fitness centre, with its extensive 55-station gym and group exercise studio, the building also includes a 44m x 28m sports hall, four glass backed squash courts, 25m eight-lane variable-floor pool, three classrooms, conference room, large multi-purpose room, extensive changing rooms, fully equipped kitchen, refreshment areas and a physio room. The school also boasts a superb outdoor floodlit artificial turf pitch, along with grass pitches.

The studio has a busy timetable, offering a wide range of classes including circuits, Pilates, kick boxing, aerobics, step and fitness yoga. Group cycling classes are also offered in the studio.

The state-of-the-art, £9.1m facility in South Croydon was opened to the public in June 2005 and is managed on behalf of the school by Bladerunner.

Management
With considerable expertise in the dual-use management and operations of sports and leisure facilities within the education sector, Bladerunner has worked with the Whitgift School from concept to completion of the project. The company’s proven business model enables educational establishments, like Whitgift, to improve their facilities and ensure that students have priority in their use, as well as deriving income from their out of hours use as private health clubs.

Membership
Exclusively used by the school throughout the weekdays, the facility also offers private memberships to ‘friends of Whitgift’ from 5pm to 10pm and at weekends. The 700 members have use of a facility that rivals private health clubs in the area.

Staff
The facility is run by three full time staff and five part time. All gym instructors are qualified to at least Level 2 on the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs).

Inductions
All new joiners have a health screen and are also offered a full fitness assessment and induction.

The fitness assessment takes 45 minutes and is particularly important if people have never used a gym facility before. Assessments are carried out in a dedicated room to ensure privacy for members. Assessments are followed by a full induction, where members are shown all the equipment and a tailor-made programme is created. New members are then reassessed and their programme updated after 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months and then every 6 months.

Disability Discrimination Act
The entire facility is DDA compliant and the gym includes specialist pieces of equipment for disabled users.