Penticton High School agrees to restructured school schedule for OHA students

April 14, 2010

The Okanagan Hockey Academy (OHA) presented an amended schedule to Penticton Secondary School. The new schedule, which will come into effect for the beginning of the 2010 – 2011 school year, will see OHA students attending their weekday academic classes between 8:30am and 1:00pm, Monday – Friday.

The OHA’s academic tutorial blocks will remain from 7:30am – 8:30am, leaving the afternoons open for on and off-ice hockey training. As a result, OHA students will miss less academic classes for hockey practices, and vice versa.

“In the past our players have had to miss about 25% of their academic classes, time they had to make up in tutorial sessions when they could be focusing on their regular studies,” said David Nackoney, full-time counselor for OHA students. “This new schedule should bring that number of missed classes down to below 10%. That’s a real positive move for our academic program.”

"We are extremely pleased with this new schedule as it will improve the lives of our students, academically, athletically and socially,” said Andy Oakes, president of the Okanagan Hockey Academy. “We have managed to work an academic and athletic training schedule that will ensure the students do not miss class time for on or off ice training. I am looking forward to seeing the students at OHA achieve a higher standard academically in the 2010 - 2011 season, which will result in more opportunity for them in the future.”

The proposed schedule was presented to Penticton Secondary School by the Okanagan Hockey Academy. After conducting some research, the school’s faculty voted 70% in favour of it. Penticton Secondary Principal Bill Bidlake believes the schedule will be positive for the students and teaching staff alike.

“Our staff is quite excited about it’” Bidlake said. “We had a situation in which a number of students were missing about a quarter of their classes, because they were held in both the mornings and the afternoons. Because of the hockey practices, students would have to miss some of these. This new system was set up so that all of the practices would be held in the afternoons and classes in the morning.  It’s a huge concept in terms of students being successful.”

Okanagan Hockey Academy students have the rare opportunity to participate in a full-time hockey program, while attending regular classes alongside other students.

“One of the real benefits is that these students are taking regular classes with highly qualified instructors.  They don’t need to take courses through distance education,” stated Bidlake. “The (Okanagan Hockey Academy) kids are very polite, respectful, students that work hard and are constantly going to teachers to find out what they missed, particularly in the old system. Our teachers continually find that the students are always trying to achieve top marks.”

For more information or to register for the Okanagan Hockey Academy, visit www.hockeyacademy.ca.