Health & PE – Tennis & Ball Skills!
Over the past two weeks, students have been engaging in a variety of racquet skills and games which have included bat tennis, racquet tennis, catching, throwing, balancing, juggling as well as working in small teams. Continuing our focus for student agency, I asked for students to come forward and suggest any known particular games or activities we could participate in that related to tennis. We initially took the time to experiment with the equipment, understand the strokes and techniques, learning from professional players via YouTube, further developing our newly learnt racquet skills and finally finishing with a series of home group games and round robin competitions. Here is what each year level focused on during this unit:
Years 5 & 6: After becoming familiar with bat tennis skills, students took their time understanding the rules and how to play tennis with specific skills involved with this sport. This included under arm serving, forehand strokes, backhand strokes, volleys and playing doubles.
Years 3 & 4: Similar to the 5/6’s, students in these cohorts began the unit using the smaller bat tennis bats to re-acquire simple strokes – forehand and backhand. After practicing with tennis balls against the gym walls (or with a partner), students were given the opportunity to use the brand new tennis nets to experience hitting the ball at a certain height and within the lines.
Years 1 & 2: A lot of focus went into hand and eye co-ordination when using tennis balls in this unit. Skills not only included balancing balls with bat tennis bats, but juggling, bouncing the tennis balls as well as catching them with the fun net catchers. This week, the students finished the unit with a fun game of ‘King of the court.’
Foundation: Again, similar to Year’s 1 & 2, students in prep continued developing their throwing and catching skills when using the tennis balls. They engaged in a series of games which allowed them to throw tennis balls using the correct posture and bending the knees/opening their hands when catching the balls.
Continuing on with our tennis focus, I’d like to share with the community the fantastic news regarding three of our senior students who represented our school in the recent district tennis competition, held at Clifton Hill Tennis courts. Hamish Kennett, Chanon Lee and Aurelie Kostova all played magnificently on the day. A big well done to Chanon who made it to the divisional round and a congratulations to Aurelie who made it through to regional! We wish her all the very best and will let the community know in our next blog update!
