Batchwood Tennis Club apprentice Alex joined the team in September 2013 when he commenced his LTA Coach Apprentice Level 2 Diploma.
Director of Tennis at Batchwood Liz Jones gave the reasons he was nominated “From the outset Alex always showed initiative and drive to deliver with good quality. He had obviously received a fantastic start with Matt Fellingham at Royston.
Alex led on programmes almost from the outset (as opposed to most apprentices who start off shadowing and assisting). He led on the mini tennis community programme to begin with and then he received extensive training on these following events whilst working with the Batchwood coaches:
• Mini Aces (the programme which precedes Tarbes)
• Tarbes
• Community: Ladies, Adult social, Tennis Xpress, Cardio tennis (after attending the CPD course), Mini Tennis Awards. He has delivered across all sites in St Albans: Batchwood, London Colney, Harpenden, Verulamium Park, Westminster Lodge
• Disability sessions (Heathlands school), Oaklands College (Hearing impaired and learning difficulties)
• Performance players: Alex worked alongside top coaches to observe and assist in the HPC players' individual lessons. He has also covered my work (when I have been away tutoring) training my individual players.
• Great British Tennis Weekend events.
• Community marketing days
• Schools - for the first term of his placement Alex shadowed Head Coach Jon Meredith and then by Christmas he was fully prepared and more than capable of delivering and leading school sessions. At this present time Alex delivers at 7 schools from the Winning Start schools tennis programme.
Off the court Alex needed to complete an employment and awareness level 2 and 3 qualification and also a level 2 and 3 coaching diploma.(which includes his level 2 and level 3 UKCC coaching qualification)
Alex has worked at Batchwood throughout the period when we were waiting for Batchwood to be built and has experienced a full blown account of delivering in the community.”
On behalf of everyone at Herts Tennis we extend our congratulations to Alex on this prestigious award that was presented at the LTA National Coaches Conference and we are very proud of his achievements to date.