Junior

Talent attraction, identification and development programme

The club has formal agreements with a number of schools; these include two primary schools and one secondary school. Coaching is delivered on site at one primary school which has a tennis facility. Other schools use our facilties.
We advertise our club and it’s junior programme through newsletters and posters on school noticeboards; this attracts many children to join our club.
The club has flyers delivered once a year to local houses advertising the club.
The club has a junior membership subscription scale, staggered by age, affordable to most parents. We encourage the parents to also join at a special rate to allow them to participate with their children.
We have a junior coaching programme planned by fully qualified coaches and implemented by them and assistant coaches, tennis leaders and other volunteers.
We have competitive structures for children of all ages: internal box leagues, local junior leagues; county singles leagues, plus the “Road to Wimledon” competition.

Children are initially placed into group coaching programmes according to age, and are quickly re-grouped by standard. More talented children are then taken out and placed into smaller squads and encouraged to have indvidual lessons.
We liaise with the County Talent Performance Co-ordinator who is aware of our performance programmes and is informed of the dates/times of lessons, frequently makes planned or unplanned visits; and provides us with advice on how better to improve our programmes and teaching methods. Children can be seen individually or through an arranged session or lesson if required.
We inform the County Co-ordinator of promsing childen that show talent. The player is then normally registered by the County and a formal letter sent out to the child’s parents invting him/her to a County ID day.

The club has a development policy that includes part-subsidy of the coaching of its promising and keen juniors, through re-investment of money raised from the club’s annual open junior tournament.
The club also takes advantage of funds made available from the County to further assist promising juniors, and likewise from national LTA funds for the most successful .
The coaches of juniors assisted from County or National funds receive detailed feedback and recommendations on technique, physical training or competitive scheduling, and these are incorporated into club/player coaching plans.