Rebecca Stickland is off to Canada in the summer.

It’s not a holiday, you understand, because the Bournside School PE teacher will be accompanied by 67 pupils as well as seven other members of staff.

The dual sports tour – it’s for rugby players and netball players – will see the youngsters fly out to Toronto on 18th July before returning home eight days later.

It really is a dream trip for the teenagers and it’s something that Stickland, a decent netball player, regrets that she never had the chance to take part in when she was younger.

“There wasn’t the same opportunity in those days, especially a joint tour,” said the 37-year-old. “Fifteen or 20 years ago you may have done a French exchange!”

So what does Stickland think the players – there are two rugby teams aged under-14 and under-15 and three netball teams ranging in age from under-14 to under-16 – will gain from the tour?

“It will give them the chance to experience another culture,” she said. “They will be touring as part of a team but also as part of a bigger squad.

“It will increase social interaction between the players of the two sports – it will be fun drawing everyone together.”

There will also be sightseeing trips to places like the Niagara Falls so while the sport is obviously important, the trip is clearly by no means all about sport.

Having said that, Stickland is keen to stress how important sport is at the school.

“It’s huge,” she said. “The amount of fixtures we have is amazing – netball, swimming, hockey, indoor athletics. The boys have all their fixtures as well and play rugby on Saturday mornings.

“We have clubs and fixtures every day.

“We hope that this tour to Canada will encourage more kids to stay involved, or get involved, in sport.”

And it already appears to be working.

“We had three or four girls who wanted to come on the tour even though they weren’t playing netball,” explained Stickland. “Now they are playing netball and they’re enjoying it.”

This is the first overseas sports tour that the school have organised since 2001 and Stickland said the plan is to hopefully roll one out every two years.

The pupils on this trip have been raising money to towards tour kit for each student and funding lunches and excursions.

They’ve already had a quiz night and a sponsored bag pack at Morrisons and there is also a sponsored indoor rowing event planned at Regent Arcade, also in Cheltenham, on 2nd March.

Stickland said that she might take part in the indoor rowing event herself and she’s certainly played plenty of sport – particularly netball – over the years.

Originally from Bristol, she played county age group netball from under-14 through to under-18 before playing three years in the first team during her time at the University of Gloucestershire.

Her PGCE saw her based at Ribston Hall and Kingsmead before she moved on to Barnwood Park Arts College and now Bournside.

She has always been a PE teacher and after leaving university she played netball for Old Chelts for nine years until 2011.

“I always played centre court,” she said. “I stopped playing when my daughter was born.”

These days the mum-of-two plays in the Netball Fun League.

“We call ourselves Old Chelts Vets,” she said, “I love it.”

And it’s that love of all things sport that she hopes, as much as anything else, that the 67 teenagers going to Canada will gain from the trip.