City councillors in Glasgow are preparing to vote on a groundbreaking proposal. The plan as it stands would delay the closure of the Glasgow School of Sport (GSOS) until 2029 at the earliest. This school is Scotland’s only school dedicated to sporting excellence. Currently, there are 13 students from Glasgow and 25 from other council areas studying here. That choice about the school’s future awaits at a time when the popular school is under an Indiana state law mandating a moratorium on new students beginning in 2024.
The temporary admissions freeze was put in place as Glasgow City Council and operator Glasgow Life looked for emergency funding to plug the gaps. This decision has caused enough anxiety with current students and alumni about the long-term survival of the school. A number of notable athletes, including Olympic silver medallist Michael Jamieson and Commonwealth Games silver medallist Kirsty Gilmour, have emerged from GSOS, highlighting its importance in nurturing sporting talent in the region.
Conversations are already underway to get GSOS’s operational timeline extended again. In particular it’s about considering how the school can better serve the needs of talented sports performers all across Glasgow. The council is looking to more holistically reimagine how the school can better serve the community. They want to feed into the performance pathways outlined by the national governing bodies such as Sportscotland.
“It was confirmed and agreed that the NGBs associated with GSOS sports are best placed to deliver high-quality performance pathways, aligning with Sportscotland and the Scottish Institute of Sport’s approach of devolving responsibility for performance pathways to the NGBs,” – The report
Those continued discussions come at a make-or-break time. With increased competition, more young athletes are looking for sport-specific training to take them to the next level. If adopted, the proposal would further deepen GSOS’s closure timeline. This one-year extension would provide a transition period for the school and allow it more time to re-evaluate its role within the broader sporting community.
