Refreshed strategy builds solid foundations for tennis in education

To mark the launch of its refreshed Tennis in Education Strategy, Geoff Newton, Executive Director of the Tennis Foundation, blogs about the strategy and what they and the LTA are doing to get young people active and involved in tennis.

It’s been a very exciting week for the Tennis Foundation with the launch of our refreshed Tennis in Education Strategy at Broadway Academy Secondary School in Birmingham with Judy Murray.

For those of you who may not have heard of the Tennis Foundation, we’re Great Britain’s leading tennis charity and our vision is a sport which is truly inclusive and accessible to every kind of community. Our aim is to provide opportunities to encourage people to maximise their potential through tennis.

The Tennis Foundation works across three charitable areas: in education, with disabled people and with disadvantaged communities. Put simply, we provide a combination of funding, tennis equipment, training and advice to individuals and organisations to make tennis accessible to all.

Education is a key part of British tennis’ new Strategic Plan and together the Tennis Foundation and Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) are making a renewed commitment to help more two to 22-year-olds stay healthy playing tennis, while enjoying all the social benefits the sport brings.

Since joining the Tennis Foundation in 2011, I have been extremely proud and encouraged by what we have achieved through our Tennis in Education programme. The quality of the free teacher training, resources and equipment we offer, coupled with the millions of young people we’ve reached so far, shows just what can be achieved when you empower people with the confidence to put on safe and fun tennis lessons in a variety of venues.

As we approach the milestone of supporting 20,000 schools, amongst many other things, we have taken the time to review our education programme and refresh the strategy to strengthen our existing programmes and have a deeper focus on specific areas such as secondary schools, where we know we need to combat the drop-off rates of pupils playing tennis.

We also want to explore further how tennis can help to provide a solution to some of the issues facing schools, such as poor behaviour and academic achievement, as well as the more general problem in society of obesity as a result of inactivity.

Our Beyond the Baseline programme, in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, aims to tackle some of these issues by training current and former professional tennis players as mentors to inspire secondary school pupils both on and off the court.

Following a successful pilot in 2014 with the Pre-School Learning Alliance and Busy Bees Nurseries, we are also beginning a new programme of activity in early years settings to improve physical literacy, by providing two to five-year-olds with the fundamental skills of agility, balance and coordination.

Looking ahead there are many challenges but it is the responsibility of the Tennis Foundation, working in close partnership with the LTA, to help develop opportunities for those who are less likely to find themselves involved in tennis and create a truly inclusive and accessible sport.

Working in partnership with many fantastic organisations, I’m confident that the Tennis Foundation is well positioned to continue leveraging the power of sport in a focused and effective way to deliver an even more positive impact on people's lives.

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