Our Mission
At Simply Sports our mission is to make sport FUN and equip children with the skills they’ll need to confidently participate in sports as adults, leading to a HAPPY and HEALTHY life!
At Simply Sports we offer sports programs that have been designed to give students an opportunity to develop their gross motor skills in a safe, fun and professional environment. Our sports programs cater for all students no matter what their ability.
We believe the body, mind and soul are inseparably connected and therefore we believe an ACTIVE child will not only develop physically, they will also reap the health benefits of exercise. They will be more confident, connected with other children and perform better academically too!
We aim to develop life-long sports participants, whatever level that might be. We believe this is achieved by teaching and equipping children with the basic, fundamental skills which will enable them to confidently participate in sports as adults. We believe this to be an essential segue to leading an active lifestyle and being socially connected.
Our programs are designed to be FUN whilst also challenging. Our coaches are always encouraging, as we believe children learn best when they feel confident enough to take risks without fear of making mistakes! Children are more likely to participate in sports as adults if they have had positive experiences as children.
History
Simply Sports was established in 2011 by Adrian Gatto. Adrian is the PE Teacher at St Francis of Assisi school in Newton South Australia. He saw how passionate the students were about playing soccer and felt that this enthusiasm needed to be harnessed. He then introduced a soccer academy called ‘Simply Football’. The academy was very popular and grew quickly due to students wanting to bring their friends from other schools. Their parents were so impressed with the academy that they approached their school’s sports coordinators hoping to have a Simply Football Academy at their school.
Simply Football then started running programs in other nearby schools such as Rostrevor College and Magill Primary school and has now earned a reputation for delivering quality programs in more than 10 schools. As schools became accustomed to our quality soccer programs, we started being asked if we could do other sports for them. Hence, in 2019 Simply Netball was formed.
As a Physical Education teacher, Adrian has seen first-hand the decline of Fundamental Movement Skills in young children. In 2015 he introduced KinderKICK, to accompany Simply Football, which was a program for Pre-School aged children to learn soccer skills such as kicking and dribbling a ball. In 2019 he adjusted the program to Kinder Sports which focuses on and includes all the Fundamental Movement Skills such as throwing, catching, striking and more. He believes that Pre-Schoolers should be exploring everything they can do with their bodies.
During his teaching career, Adrian also saw a greater need to teach children about their Wellbeing. He believes children need to be taught about having characteristics such as being resilient and confident. Simply Sports now also offers Simply Cricket, Simply Basketball and Simply Tennis programs.
