Tennis Foundation and Give It Your Max celebrate successful end to 2017
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Back in 2015, the Tennis Foundation, Great Britain's leading tennis charity, announced an exciting partnership with Give It Your Max to provide opportunities and support for disabled pupils to play tennis as part of a five-year agreement.
Fast-forward to 2017 and the charities are celebrating the end of another successful year, with a total of fifteen Mainstream & Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools now signed up to their scheme.
Directed specifically towards children with disabilities or special needs, the Tennis Foundation & Give it Your Max partnership works to provide disabled pupils with an opportunity to play tennis both inside and outside school settings.
With the likes of Writhlington School, Victoria Education Centre in Poole and King Alfred’s Specalist Sports College in Wantage all signed up to the programme, the charities are helping pupils from all across the UK involved with tennis activities.
Thrilled with the programme’s progression, Michelle Oldham, Tennis Manager at Give it Your Max commented:
"We are delighted to enter our third year of our disability tennis programme with the Tennis Foundation. We've seen the programme expand a considerable amount since we first started in 2015 and along the way we've received a great deal of positive feedback.
"It’s wonderful to see so many children and young adults getting the opportunity to play tennis. We are passionate about growing the disability programme further and look forward to many more years of working closely with the Tennis Foundation."
Adding to Michelle’s comments, Paul Cummins – Further Education Projects Manager at the Tennis Foundation said:
"We are delighted to be working closely with Give It Your Max on this joint project, and it is great to see so many young people with disabilities experiencing Tennis within their school and transitioning into Tennis opportunities within their communities.
"The feedback from schools, parents and young people has beeen excellent and we look forward to working with all 15 schools in 2018. We look forward to working with Give It Your Max for years to come."
As a result of the programme’s success, the Tennis Foundation and Give it Your Max are celebrating some impressive year-end figures, with an increasing amount of young people with disabilities or special needs getting involved with tennis activites. Indeed, 2017 figures show:
- 487 young people have played on a monthly basis
- 367 young people have played on a weekly basis
- 41 young people with a visual impairment have accessed tennis monthly
- 258 young people with learning difficulties have accessed tennis monthly
- 71 young people who are deaf have accessed tennis monthly
With 2018 the start of the third year of partnership between the two charities, both parties are looking forward to yet more success in the coming months. With all fifteen schools and colleges benefiting from a three-year programme, it’s hoped tennis participation figures among children with disabilities will continue to increase. To find out more about the Tennis Foundation’s work in education and disability click here.
