Nottingham Juniors

Nottingham Juniors

For 5 weeks, from 4th June, 60 Year 5 pupils (aged 9 to 10) from the Lanes School, Beeston have visited Nottingham Croquet Club to be taught, by the Club’s volunteer junior coaches, how to play croquet as part of their school’s PE curriculum. Ian Draper and his team created a detailed scheme of work, developing, over the 5 weeks, a range of mallet and ball skills, improving pupils’ accuracy, confidence, teamwork, motor skills and understanding of the game of croquet.  At the end of the term, the pupils were given the opportunity to feedback their thoughts, in the form of 2 “stars” each (things they loved most) and 1 “wish” (things they would have liked more of).  The top 3 of 12 “star” categories were playing croquet games (32 votes), the coaches (28) and learning a new sport (17). The top “wishes” were more time (30 votes) and more games (9). Well done team and many thanks for all your hard work to make this project a success.

 

Thanks also to East Midlands Airport Community Fund which so generously funded the purchase of over £960 worth of junior mallets, balls and lawn games’ kits that helped make the Lanes School pupils’ experience (and that of the after-school junior club members every Wednesday) such a success.

On Sunday 7th July Nottingham Croquet Club hosted the National Schools and Juniors Tournament for Croquet England. In the final, Chilwell School (Declan McPhee and Jack Martin) beat Winchester College (August Deeming and Oliver Jing) by 2 games to 0. This might be the first time the schools’ tournament has been won by a comprehensive school!

The junior events were split into 3 age groups. The Under 18s event was won by Nottingham’s Declan McPhee (the runner-up was August Deeming from Winchester, Hampshire). The Under 13s event was won by Nottingham’s Talitha Hallam  and  the runner-up was Charlie Philpotts, from Stourbridge, West Midlands.  The Under 11s event was won by  Lucy Martin, with runner-up Milly Draper, both Nottingham Croquet Club members. There was also an unofficial competition for the many under 7’s who entered.

It was a delight to see such a range of ages playing and the scene across the four west lawns at Nottingham was very different from the normal croquet image.

Next year’s National Schools’ and Juniors’ Tournament will be expanded to include Club teams, with Under 18, Under 14 and Under 11 competitions and will take place on 21st and 22nd June 2025.

By Ian Draper

 

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