The Medway Primary School Games Racket Skills Festival (for years 3 and 4) ‘Healthy Me outcome’ has been running annually for primary school teams cross Medway since 2012.

Organised by the local School Games Organiser, Claire Moore, for many years the Festival has recruited 3-4 Racket community sports club coach volunteers who deliver three different skills stations in their sport to teams of pupils, helping them to learn how to play their racket sport i.e. serving/aiming at a target and trying to rally. 

This Festival (with 6-8 school teams in an AM sessions and then again a PM session, cannot happen without the full support of 10-20 student sport leaders from local secondary schools (The Howard School and Rainham Girls School this year).

Millie Waud from Rainham School for Girls stated “Our sports leaders are extremely grateful for the opportunity to help support primary schools with their racket sports skills. It is great to see so many children trying different sports and being educated by older students. It gives them a chance to be excellent role models and learning how to improve performance in younger students”.

Teams book on in advance and pay to enter as part of the local annual School Sports Partnership competition package or they can enter and pay a one off individual team entry for the half day of skills activities.

Rackets Skills Coaches provide their day of coaching and support free of charge and in return the Festival organisers are keen to promote the local community rackets clubs (Avenue Tennis Club, Castlemaine Badminton Club and Chatham Table Tennis club) and their junior coaching opportunities locally. 

Schools teams are presented at the end of each session with a goodie bag of certificates, club flyers promoting their junior programme/how to join/a free family day visit, plus any other freebies the sports club can source for the children.

Dylan Thompson, a teacher from Elaine primary School said “The event is so important to give the pupils exposure to different sports at a young age. It’s not just their sporting ability but also how it improves social skills”