School
At Tennis Midlands we place as much emphasis on the scholastic element of our programme as we do on the tennis. We understand the significance of parents deciding to take their child out of mainstream education in order to pursue a high performance tennis programme. This understanding has led us to bulid an academic study structure that so far has delivered highly succesful results in both GCSE (grade A to C) and BTEC Diploma (Distinction).
NEWS JUST IN!!! 2008 GCSE Exam Results of Tennis Midlands Study Group kids!
We are delighted and very proud of our study group players who have excelled themselves in their GCSE exams. These are children who are genuinely combining academic study around an elite level tennis programme. Well done guys!
Of 19 exams sat the results spread is as follows:
1 A*, 6 As, 5 Bs, 2 Cs, 1 D, 1 E & 3 BTEC Distictions.
We are one of the first performance tennis environments
to run an onsite academic study programme to allow its players to fit
their scholastic education around their elite level tennis programmes.
This ‘fitting education around tennis’ approach means that
our students are able to pursue a training programme that gives them
access to 25 training hours a week:
0845 Arrive ready to warm-up
0900 Morning tennis session starts
1045 Morning tennis session ends
1100 Study group starts
1230 Lunch
1300 Study group starts
1350 Study group ends
1400 Afternoon tennis session starts
1555 Afternoon tennis session ends
1600 Physical conditioning session starts
1700 Day ends
Having our players condense all their training into a 9-5 day is clearly advantageous. It keeps them fresh and alert and allows them to study further in the evenings.
The assignment based approach to education means that our students are
accelerating through the syllabus rapidly and it is anticipated that
they will take their GCSE exams in some cases 12 months early.
This then
gives time for international travel for the most successful players and
brings forward important decisions about whether players should progress
into:
• Professional Tennis;
• Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence;
• Full-time education.
The Nottingham Tennis Academy Academic Study Group story 2005-2008:
“The Nottingham Tennis Academy Academic Study Group was set up
in September 2005. It has been a great success.
We have eight students who study core subjects by distance learning through
Mercer’s College in Hertfordshire. They are supervised by an Educational
Co-ordinator who is also an English and French specialist. Specialist
subject tutors come in to the Tennis Centre if needed.
The Students
The students come from a variety of educational backgrounds and most
found that:
• due to their tennis commitments, their education in mainstream
schools had suffered
• their school found it difficult to cope with them taking time
out of lessons for tennis training.
So the reason that the Programme has been such a success is that it
has enabled these children to continue with their education at the same
time as working on their tennis. But academically, these students are
not just getting by. They are attaining seriously high marks in all subjects.
» Table showing NTA Students English grades 2006-2007
In reference to the above table, our four Year 9 (aged 14) and
two Year 10 (aged 15) pupils’ English assignment grades
are marked at GCSE level as they are all due to take their English GCSE
in May 2007. These grades are excellent considering they will be
taking the examination either one or two years early.
In addition, we have two year 9 and one year 10 pupils who are taking their Maths
GCSE in May 2007, one year 10 pupil taking History in May 2007 and a second year
10 pupil sitting Geography at this time. Again, due to the intensive nature
of the Programme, all these students are able to take publicly recognized examinations
earlier than they would do in a mainstream school. This will give them
more time to focus on tennis when they are sixteen.
