Highbank Primary School wins Nottinghamshire LTA School of the Year award, recognising the highly successful introduction of a Rackets Cubed programme in partnership with Nottingham Trent University.
In 2021-22, Highbank Primary has worked with Nottingham Trent University to, in partnership with Rackets Cubed, deliver an integrated Tennis, Education (STEM / Maths) and Nutrition programme for Year 3 – 4 primary school-aged children from the local Clifton area. The programme strives to provide young people with significant complementary extra-curricular support to promote physical, psychological development and education achievement with the support of tennis.
With this award, Nottinghamshire LTA have recognised the success of this programme which, since its introduction in October 2021, has engaged 32 unique participants, many of whom are pupil premium eligible and have never had the opportunity to participate in tennis particularly in the inspirational tennis venue and university facilities on Nottingham Trent University’s Clifton Campus site.
The award celebrates two key members of school teaching staff – James Oxley and Abigail Edmonds – who have been instrumental in recruiting pupils who are most in need of this opportunity as well as supporting with the logistics of running an after school off site sports club. This programme requires the school to walk the pupils over 1.2 miles from the school site to the tennis venue each Monday from 3pm till 5.30pm meaning the teachers often don’t finish until around 5.50pm on a Monday, which is additional to their working week.
Highbank Primary & Nursery School goes above and beyond to deliver excellent curricular, extra-curricular and pastoral support to young people through sport. They have shown great trust and dedication in their local tennis venue – Nottingham Trent University – and the Rackets Cubed programme to offer a wholly unique opportunity to promote physical, psychological development and education achievement of their students through tennis. The programme is delivered mostly by NTU student volunteers who are able to develop their coaching skills and achieve tennis coaching qualifications alongside their university degree. Significantly, the programme also highlights to the young people the commitment and care shown by the university students to give up their time to support them.
If you would like to discuss launching a Rackets Cubed activity programme at your primary school, please get in touch.