Paris has INSEP, and Nantes has CENS. It is the only private school dedicated to top athletes in Europe. The Nantes Educational Center for Athletes was created in 1984. Initially, it was solely dedicated to FC Nantes and was in charge of its training center. From now on, the school hosts 35 sports structures for 23 different sports disciplines and educates 291 students, from middle school to high school.
Throughout the school year, students are enrolled in a “triple project” around “the individual, the athlete and the school”, develops Rémi Ledoux, the director of CENS. Since the year 2021-2022, 35 sports structures, from 23 different sports, have been linked to the establishment. With the Covid-19 and the many trips of the different students, the director and his team were a little ahead of their time. “All classrooms are equipped with boxes for distance learning and each student receives a tablet on arrival,” explains the former sailing specialist who helps prevent school dropout. “We have a student, a tennis player, who was absent for two months this year and she didn’t drop out,” he says.
Many requests and few accepted
So how does this “high school for athletes” work? Before each start of the school year, students are selected on the basis of sporting criteria with priority given to members of the France cluster, even if all students are not on the lists of high-level athletes.
And on paper you also have to convince the parents. “It can scare them because there are fewer hours of lessons and more sport. They wonder how their child is going to be good at school,” explains the director. But the situation has changed in recent years and the majority of athletes who have passed through the CENS have obtained a diploma. If before it was complicated to fill the classrooms, it is now a headache to get everyone back. “I have 34 school records pending for next year. Going to CENS has to be earned, both in terms of sport and citizenship, ”said the former history teacher who wants his students not to lock themselves in their sports bubble.
The CREPS of Pays de la Loire, a jewel of modernity
Football with FC Nantes, basketball with Hermine Nantes, handball with the Neptunes, or ice hockey with the Corsairs. The CENS collaborates with the majority of Nantes clubs, but one of its most important partnerships is the CREPS. The Center for Sports Expertise and Performance Resources in the Pays de la Loire region welcomes sports people from Nantes, educated at the CENS, and other sports people from the region who are housed, fed and students within this regional structure. , public, and funded by communities. If this is their fundamental difference, most CENS classes are under contract with the State, but that does not prevent them from working hand in hand. “The CENS is an essential basic model. We are on a renovation of the teaching practice”, praises the director Aude Reygade. Their relationship is all the more favored as the CREPS inaugurated its new premises in September 2021, close to the CENS.
From now on, the “Jonelière”, a name known to be the holiday resort of the Canaries, welcomes the CREPS, on land “offered by Nantes Métropole”. Thus, in barely ten minutes on foot, the students have their classrooms, their sports facilities, a medical office and even their accommodation, for the 120 interns, within easy reach. And the jewel of futurism is none other than the sports building. Inside, paint smells have not completely disappeared despite the daily use of the three gymnasiums. One of them is completely dedicated to table tennis and regularly hosts French teams for training. Thanks to the video equipment, set up in all the rooms, they can decipher their gestures in slow motion.
The recovery area, with hammam, sauna and cold bath, is a delight for athletes after their sessions. And in a few weeks, two rooms, almost impossible to find in France, will be inaugurated: a hypoxic room, which is used to simulate high altitude situations, and a thermo-training room to train in very high or low heat conditions. . Not to mention the brand new weight room and the over-equipped physiotherapy area. No doubt: young adults are put in the best possible position to achieve their dream of becoming a top athlete.
Many athletes who have passed through the CENS
And the roof still has other surprises in store. In this 2017 project, it was decided that an outdoor shooting range for archery would be set up, and what was done, respecting Olympic distances. Apart from South Korea, it is the only place in Europe where such a structure has been built. Something to make the Koreans dream, the world’s best nation in the discipline, who would like to settle there before the 2024 Olympic Games, but they are not the only ones. “This dual model is starting to interest high-level structures. The French Table Tennis Federation is thinking of repatriating its players to Nantes”, welcomes the director of CREPS.
All this has something to dream about, but you still have to ensure on the school side. Future big names in French sport have been on the benches of CENS: Laura Valette, Olympic athlete in the 100m hurdles, Quentin Merlin, recent winner of the Coupe de France with FC Nantes for his first season as a professional, and former players like Mickael Landreau and Christian Karembeu to name but a few. Some have failed at school or are in great difficulty and have managed to find their way back to school thanks to the supervision provided by the CENS, its small classes, this daily monitoring by the teachers as well as the administrative team in going through “the familiarity and personalization”, explains Rémi Ledoux. Many of them come back regularly to tell their stories to the students and to make them understand that if the athlete is important, the school is just as important. And these speeches enter a little more in the heads of these sportsmen whom they dream of imitating.
At least 1,200 euros per year
Because the CENS is a school like any other, and sometimes has some difficulty in bringing some students into line. “If he is not good academically or if he does not behave well, we remove him from training”, explains Rémi Ledoux. And the coaches understand that perfectly. “We have a coach who came to a class and warned his players that if there was one who was not a partner with the teachers, he would be deprived of a match,” he says.
But this idyllic setting has a price: 1,235 euros for middle school and 2,525 euros for high school. Scholarship students benefit from aid, but “70% of families pay everything”. And again, to these tuition fees are added the CREPS packages where a year costs around 5,000 euros. Some clubs put their hands in the wallet, like FC Nantes which manages all the supplies for the students. The CENS is an association of the 1901 law and it has already happened that tuition fees drop from one year to another.
The establishment, despite its price, is however a success. The students have a schedule adapted to their training and they benefit from quality infrastructures and no longer have this “constant balance of power where the teachers have the stereotype of the high-level athlete with a profile incompatible with large and traditional classes. “. The codes are broken, the individual is put back at the center of the project.