We signed up for the LTA Youth Schools programme after our School Games Organiser informed all our schools about the opportunity.
We’ve always taught tennis as part of our curriculum, so we wanted to look at some new ideas to help keep our lessons fresh and up to date - we were really excited when we heard about the new programme.
We are always looking at getting our children to try different sports in school, in the hope that it sparks their enthusiasm to want to carry on playing after school hours. With LTA Youth Schools coming from the national governing body of tennis, we were confident that it would be of benefit to us.
Empathy
PE has always been an important part of the school curriculum, but it is arguably even more vital now due to the national lockdown which saw so many children being inactive over this last year.
PE plays a key role in teaching transferable skills needed to play different sports and also developing basic movements that are needed to function in everyday life.
Away from the physical benefits of PE, it also helps to develop resilience, empathy, confidence and social skills – which are all vital for good mental health. The LTA Youth Schools programme has a strand focussed on just this – developing key character qualities through assemblies and classroom-based challenges.
We place a high level of importance on PE at our school, the children love playing, moving and learning all at the same time.
Voucher
LTA Youth Schools has been great for our school. Not only have we received amazing training through the free online course, but the resources that we now have are brilliant and we will continue to use them for years to come.
We have access to the website which shows great video examples of how to teach each task and a resource book with all the same information as the website that can be brought into a lesson.
And unlike any other training course, we were also given a £250 voucher so we were able to buy the equipment needed for the lessons.
This is a huge statement from the LTA to show how dedicated they are to helping children develop both their tennis skills as well as basic fundamental movements.
Fantastic
LTA Youth Schools can be used throughout the school, as the lessons are aimed for children from Year 1 to 6. It’s broken down into easy to follow schemes of work and sections which is great for any classroom teacher who might not feel confident teaching PE.
Tennis is a fantastic sport for children and adults to participate in. It’s a sport that I was lucky enough to play growing up and I’d love to encourage the children at our school to play it as much as possible.
Tennis is great as it can be played by yourself against a wall with just a racket and ball or with friends socially at a park or club.
Dan Smith is Manchester Road Primary Academy Sports Coach PE Lead.
