15/03/2010 - Schools Tennis Road Show 2010 - Week 3

The Schools Tennis Road Show launched at The Bolton Arena, one of the LTA’s High Performance Centres on 22nd February, as part of the drive to help improve access to tennis for local children.

The Road Show is visiting a total of 15 venues across Great Britain and as the tour continues, the Road Show team of: Tom Gibbins, Paul Regan, Nigel Long, Phil Leighton and Chris White provide an update on progress from the third week of the tour...

Tuesday 9th March:

After the weekend drama of getting the van stuck in a muddy field and having to be pulled out by a recovery truck, we set off on the long drive to Cornwall!

The keen crew that turned out at The Dragon Leisure & Tennis Centre in Bodmin were guided through the programme by Tom, Paul and Nigel – together with Jo-anne Downing, the Tennis Development Manager for Devon & Cornwall.

Attendees at the Road Show are receiving a free copy of the ‘Out of School Hours Tennis Club Toolkit’, a new resource developed to assist teachers and coaches in setting up breakfast, lunchtime and after school sessions on school sites. Blog readers can view and download this resource online.

We’re now over half way through the 2010 tour…

Quote of the day:

From Emma Austin, Competition Manager for Cornwall
 
"The Schools Tennis Road Show was fantastic. The use of Mini Tennis will enable all young people to have a great experience of the sport. The resources give everything teachers could ever need - brilliant!"

Miles travelled so far:

1,146

Wednesday 10th March:

The group at Bristol were keen to find out more about different ways of delivering tennis in secondary schools. There’s a push across all sports to develop modified and alternative versions, to make sport more attractive and appealing to all types of pupils.

Tom presented to the concept of delivering Cardio Tennis in Secondary Schools and Paul and Nigel demonstrated the benefits of using Mini Tennis as a tool to use with lower ability pupils and disengaged groups.

Find out more about Cardio Tennis

A short hop across the Severn Bridge, ready for tomorrow’s event in Cardiff...

Quote of the day:

From Tim Parnell, Merchants Academy in Bristol
 
“The Road Show was great and I really enjoyed the activity as well as the information. I am totally sold on the benefits of mini tennis as an overall strategy to improve skills in all the sports we already cover too.”

Miles travelled so far:

1,592

Thursday 11th March:

A full group of 60 came along to Cardiff today and so did the team from Tennis Wales.

Schools Tennis has really taken off here over the last year – specifically their Primary Schools Competitions, with over 3,200 children taking part in 2009. The events link in with local clubs and they use trained Tennis Leaders and Young Competition Organisers to assist with the organisation. With such a positive response at the Road Show, the team are confident the competition will go from strength to strength in years to come!

The end of another week, we head back along the M4 to the National Tennis Centre for an office day tomorrow. This was Nigel’s last Road Show of the tour, Phil re-joins the team next week in Bournemouth…

Quote of the day:

From Tony Wallis, Competition Development Officer, Sport Caephilly:

“The resources from the Tennis Foundation have been a great opportunity for us to engage with our primary schools – we’ve not been able to before and no other sport is offering this level of support. Thanks!”

Miles travelled so far:

1,780

For more information on Schools Tennis, visit the Tennis Foundation website.

The Road Show moves on and takes in Bournemouth, Roehampton and Hatfield in Week 4. Interested?

Find out more information on how to get involved.

The team will be blogging on a weekly basis throughout the tour to keep us updated with the goings on from across the UK.

Read the blog from the second week on the tour

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