Olney Tennis Club hosted a Year 3/4 Schools Tennis Challenge with 6 local schools. Teams from Olney Middle School and Yardley Hastings together with an All Stars team of children of Denton, Turvey, Carlton and Harold schools took part in the event.
All the matches were played as Mini Tennis Red; in line with the National Schools Competition Framework, using the new 'timed match rules' allowing 10 minutes a match. Each team consisted of 8 children, who each played two matches against the opposing teams; there were some extremely close matches and the action was unremitting.
Olney Middle School won the event and was presented with a trophy by Councillor Rachel Passee of the Olney Town Council. All players were presented with a medal for taking part in the event.
Abbie Lench, Tennis Development Manager said, 'A Year 3/4 Schools-Club Challenge is something that we are encouraging all clubs with local school-club links to set up. Olney utilised the quality school-club links in place to provide a fantastic opportunity for the children to compete in a fun, friendly environment.
We are currently offering all Primary Teachers a tennis specific training course and a resource kit to kick start the delivery of tennis in school. Coaches and clubs are being encouraged to invite schools to participate in mini competition at their club and should this prove successful, we hope to develop district finals and a county final in the summer term 2010.’
If you would like to know more about the Primary Teacher Course, how to set up a school-club link or details of running a mini tennis challenge, please contact Abbie on abbie.lench@lta.org.uk.