Welcome to Our School
Principal’s Welcome
I am delighted to welcome you to our school, which offers a unique approach to education. Our program is centred around the idea that physical activity and academic achievement are interlinked. We believe that a strong emphasis on physical education provides our students with the necessary tools to excel academically, as well as personally.
Our program has a significant impact on our students’ self-image and self-confidence. Many of our students start the program overweight or obese, but with the help of our intensive training regime and education on healthy eating habits, they quickly lose weight and improve their self-image. Our students also achieve success in physical education activities, which they may not have achieved academically. This positive feedback reinforces their self-confidence, which translates into their academic performance.
We have found that our program has a powerful calming effect on distractible students. The pattern of intensive physical education followed by academic work helps them focus and stay on task. Our students also learn to accept a standard of teacher authority in physical education, which they may not accept in academic subjects.
Our physical education-based program has been proven to have positive outcomes for our students. Our approach is admittedly an unusual educational approach, but it works. We are proud to continue Frank Dando’s legacy and offer a unique approach to education that sets our students up for success in all aspects of their lives.
Thank you for choosing our school, and we look forward to seeing your child thrive in our program.
About FDSA
Inspired and created by the founder Frank Dando, renowned judo teacher and expert judo player who recognised the potential of sports in positively impacting the lives of troubled youth.
Frank Dando believed that engaging in physical activities and team sports could help build discipline, self-esteem, and social skills, which are often lacking in boys with emotional and behavioural issues.
Teenagers today face a number of challenges from a number of sources. Emotional, behavioural and mental health issues can lead teens to behave badly, affecting their ability to do well in school, hold down a job, and stay out of legal trouble. It’s when any of those issues interfere with their healthy progression through adolescence, then FDSA the Functional Development of Sports and Academics is an educational and behavioural therapy intervention program that is the best place to get professional help for troubled adolescent boys.
FDSA is a sport centred therapeutic school for adolescent boys struggling with mental, emotional, behavioural and academic challenges.
Growing up without a dad, I found it especially helpful to have the teachers as strong male role models to look up to and call on for advice; not only whilst I was a student at the school, but after too.
JAKE, FORMER FDSA STUDENT