We will be featuring feedback from schools on the benefits their projects have had in the news pages or as an add-on to their initial award news. Here's one of the first...
Year 8 & 10 boys reached the County tennis finals.
Longdean school, were lucky enough to secure funding to enable the development of the new Longdean Tennis Hub. The intent of the Hub was to develop tennis within the local area in partnership with Leverstock Green Tennis Club. Coaches from the club were able to attend every Key Stage 3 PE lesson for boys and girls at Longdean School as well as three local junior schools. This meant that over 800 students in the local area received high quality coaching throughout the summer term to help promote the sport.
This was a great opportunity for all of these students to have high quality coaching and really help the more able students with specific coaching points to help improve their technique. The lessons were pitched so all could access and enabled the students not only to make progress but to give them the opportunity to get specialised coaching.
They were also able to attend the after school club which was also run by the tennis coaches, where they received even further coaching and specific areas to help improve their performance.
This clearly helped as the Year 8 & 10 boys progressed through the County Tennis competition and both year groups made the finals to narrowly lose out to private schools.
From these coaching sessions it has also the aim to direct students to the next steps that they could take within the tennis world should they wish to by highlighting the various sessions run at the local Tennis club. From the sessions many students have attended club sessions away from school time who otherwise would not have done so. One of the Hub junior schools have even committed further to the programme by adding tennis to their PE curriculum in the September term and hiring club coaches.
We are very appreciative of the funding that we received as a school that enabled us to develop the Longdean Tennis Hub and hope that we are able to continue the successes in future years.