The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) was looking to partner with an organisation to refresh its Youth Tennis Leaders award. The Leadership Skills Foundation helped by embedding our tried and tested Skills Framework and informing the inclusion of skills development context and regular reflection points to solidify learning.
Michelle Gray, Schools and Further Education Manager with LTA, explains why they opted to work with the Leadership Skills Foundation on the project and how the programme has already benefitted thousands of young people.
Choosing the Leadership Skills Foundation
“When we decided to refresh Tennis Leaders, it made sense for us to approach the leading organisation for leadership skills development. I had previous experience of delivering the Sports Leadership qualification and knew the positive reputation the awarding body had in school settings. We wanted to leverage that reputation for the programme through our accreditation and tap into the Leadership Skills Foundation’s experience to help us create the most effective resources we could.
We were able to draw on the Leadership Skills Foundation’s vast knowledge and understanding of developing programmes that support learners to build a toolkit of lifelong, transferable skills.”
Refreshing Tennis Leaders
“The previous qualification had a minimum age of 14 years, but during the refresh, we changed this to any young person of secondary age. We know there is a drop-off in sports engagement when young people start secondary school, but we believe that the development of leadership skills can work as a brilliant engagement tool to combat that, especially in community club settings.
Underlying all of this, we wanted to make sure that the programme worked for everyone, not just those who play tennis. Whilst we know it is great to teach young people how to deliver a tennis session, what we really wanted was for learners to come away from the qualification with the self-belief to say to themselves, ‘Regardless of my baseline ability in this particular sport, I have the skillset to support and lead others.’ The Leadership Skills Foundation Team helped us to ensure that these core skills don’t simply feature in the main leadership module, but that they run like a thread throughout the revised resources.”
The impact of our partnership
“Since initial accreditation in April 2022, over 4,700 Tennis Leaders have completed the award. If we consider how many young people have participated in our leaders’ activities, the number of people benefitting from the award is even greater than this already inspirational figure.
We need to arm young people with leadership skills that they can apply in any given situation. If we can be consistent in the manner we do that, using a framework like the one created by the Leadership Skills Foundation, we can make sure that every young person is supported to develop these lifelong, transferable skills.”
Next steps
“Whilst we have finished the resource refresh for Tennis Leaders, we see this as an ongoing relationship. The Leadership Skills Foundation used examples from our resources in its Your Time programme and we expect there will be further opportunities for us to work together in the future. The quality of the service we receive is excellent. Communication is open, and feedback is listened to and acted on. A special thank you to our main point of contact, Nic, for making it so easy.”
Notes on Tennis Leaders
LTA Youth Tennis Leaders is an exciting leadership programme for young people aged 11-18 years. The programme provides young people, whatever their tennis ability, with the opportunity to gain invaluable leadership skills both on and off the court.
All course materials and resources are provided free of charge. The content can be delivered by any LTA Accredited+ Coach or secondary school PE teacher.