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St. Gilberts is a scholarship Sports Academy for young men 18-22years from deprived backgrounds around the UK, providing excellence in coaching and tutorship in both Team Sports and Athletics, with the special goal of creating professional Sportsmen of all our graduates.
Established: 1908
Principal: R. Stevens
Part 3: Andy's Ledger, including various undated handwritten entries in the notes section.
Name: Andy Smith
Dorm No: 202
Year of Study: 1st year
Welcome to St. Gilbert's Sports Academy. This proud School has been coaching new Sportsmen for over one-hundred years, and your admittance to study and compete here is testament to your talent, hard work and grit. As you settle in to your new lodgings and meet the classmates you'll be sharing the next four years with, take a moment to familiarise yourself with the information in this ledger. It contains resources for study, as well as a brief history of the School and the important House Rules which will define your time here at St. Gilbert's.
The beautiful manor house, which today comprises the lecture halls, class rooms and Tutor's accommodation, was built in 1820 by the famous entrepreneur Jeremiah Wedgeworth; a leader in the industrialisation of tanning, leatherwork and it's related crafts, who made this county an international centre for excellence in leathercraft. Although born into extreme poverty, Wedgeworth's hard-work ethic and pioneering spirit eventually led to the founding of a complex of leatherwork mills near Donning, the extraordinary profits of which established this fine family home in Mabel village. His success story continues to inspire our mission statement at St. Gilbert's Academy, of providing first rate higher education, and Sports Industry job opportunities to young men from deprived backgrounds across the UK.
By the early 20th Century, Wedgeworth's great-grandson Harvey had formulated his own interest in the education and personal development of young men, and being the last of the Wedgeworth line initiated transformation of the old family home into the proud institution we see today. The name St. Gilbert's was chosen after the nearby Church of St. Gilbert, next to which the freshwater spring and well of St. Gilbert supplied the village of Mabel for hundreds of years.
Construction of the stately dormitory buildings (unchanged since their completion) began in late 1908, and are still used to house the very same number of pupils for which they were originally designed. The adjoining sports halls, swimming pools and games courts have been built and rebuilt many times over, and today boast world-class facilities and all manner of high-tech features.
Although sports have always been a core component of education at St. Gilbert's, as in Harvey Wedgeworth's original curriculum, the first iteration of the school provided only for young men born to privilege, offering qualifications and finishing with very high fees. This continued to be the case until 2011, when former Gym Coach Ross Stevens succeeded to the position of School Principal, and established a new chapter in the proud history of this venerable Academy.
Securing funding in an unprecedented new deal with both national and local government, St. Gilbert's now proudly provides scholarships for the same high standard of sports education, but most especially for young men from disadvantaged backgrounds.
House Rules
1. Obey Coaches, Tutors and School Prefects in every instance. Education at St. Gilbert's is founded on principles of discipline and subordination. As your superiors, Teachers and Prefects will always be correct in their judgement and chastisement. It is just exactly this hard-line of discipline that has been lacking in your education up to this point - and this lack is the major contributing factor to the disadvantages that led you here. At St. Gilbert's you will experience for yourself that only by submitting to a strict regime of discipline will the inestimable rewards of diligence, duty and domestication be won.