Greenhouse Sports: St Anne’s story

About Greenhouse Sports  

Greenhouse Sports is a London-based charity that uses sport to engage young people and improve their life chances. They partner with schools, placing full-time Coach-Mentors into the school environment to deliver programmes before, during, and after school that empower and inspire young people growing up in underserved communities.   

The need  

In the UK today, 4.3 million children are growing up in poverty, with 1 million of them living in London alone. While poverty does not automatically equate to poor wellbeing or academic failure, it significantly compounds the challenges many children already face. These children are less likely to participate in physical activity or access extracurricular opportunities, often due to financial barriers and limited local provision. By age 11, they are four times more likely to report a serious mental health issue, and more likely to fall behind academically, with 37% leaving school without any GCSE qualifications. The impact on education is stark: children living in poverty are three times more likely to experience fixed-term or permanent exclusions.  

What the LTA Tennis Foundation funded  

LTA Tennis Foundation awarded a grant to Greenhouse Sports to introduce tennis coaching and mentoring activities to thousands of young people from underserved communities.  The funding is being used to scale up Greenhouse Sports’ established tennis coaching and mentoring activities so that 2,400 young people aged nine to 16 from underserved communities will discover the benefits of tennis.  

The impact  

One of the schools that has benefitted from this programme is St Anne’s Catholic High School in North London. Emma Loveland, the Head Teacher, was keen to bring tennis to the school, recognising its ability to help students develop different skills, both physical, (by being active on court) and mental (through the social aspect of tennis and the connection to a Coach-Mentor). Emma gave the example that if people move to a new area, joining a tennis club or playing on local park tennis courts is a great way to meet new people and become part of a community.  

Since bringing tennis to St. Anne’s, Emma cannot speak highly enough of Greenhouse Sports Coach-Mentor Dan, and the impact their work has had on the school’s students. Dan, who runs the programme at St Anne’s, is placed permanently in the school, like all Greenhouse Coach-Mentors. He attends all inset days, staff meetings and end of year gatherings. Greenhouse may be an add-on officially, but on a practical level Dan is part of the PE Department and is a member of the school’s staff.  

The impact of the programme is far reaching, and one area that has seen the biggest change is pupil attendance. For pupils to take part in the full programme, attendance must be at a minimum of 96%, and their behaviour points (a form of demerit points) must be at a certain level, so it’s very motivating.  The school was recently recognised for being in the top 10% in the country for attendance, which is a significant achievement given the current crisis in school attendance rates.