If you love having family fun for free, you’ll love the Lawn Tennis Association’s (LTA) free tennis lessons programme this summer.
#TennisForKids is the campaign run by the LTA to help promote tennis as a viable sport for the UK’s children and to encourage our nation’s youngsters to pick up a racket and hit some balls! They have recruited 1000 new tennis coaches to deliver a 6 week programme in May and June and each child to attend the courses gets a free racket!
L-R: Nell from Pigeon Pair & Me; Jen from Jenography & BritMums; Vicki from Honest Mum; John from Dad Blog UK; Nadine from JuggleMum
At my children’s schools, tennis is not currently an option available to the students looking to participate in a sport. The more run-of-the-mill offerings are football, cross country running, rugby and netball but the LTA is looking to change all this and encourage more youngsters into tennis with their #TennisForKids programme to get more kids hooked on the sport.
From today, parents across the country can sign up for free lessons for their children, so they can see if they might be able to follow in the footsteps of UK faves, the current UK #1 player Andy Murray or former pro British 1 female tennis player Annabel Croft.
Last month I actually spent the weekend with both, when we met Annabel Croft in Birmingham. She met me and six other BritMums bloggers at Edgbaston Priory Tennis Club to show our kids some moves and tell us about her involvement with the #TennisForKids campaign.
Here is a video of us interviewing her about her career and I put in some fun out-takes at the end!
Annabel was so down to earth and friendly – as a JuggleMum, I was keen to ask her about how she juggles her own presenting career and her tennis academy with her 3 children.
She gathered all our children together to share some techniques, here’s my son and his new friend being coached by Annabel.
My son being coached by Annabel Croft
…and this is me and Jen from Jenography and BritMums doing a pass and warming up!
Nadine (me!) left; Jen right
Annabel’s passion for tennis was contagious, so if you’d like to see for yourselves what playing tennis could be like, sign up for free tennis lessons for your kids and they could be winning matches in Centre Court!
Speaking of winning matches, after interviewing Annabel, we all hot footed it to the Barclaycard Arena to watch Andy and Jamie Murray win at mens doubles against Japan in the first round of the Davis Cup. I didn’t get as close to Andy Murray but I did write a little more about the day on this post including a video of my excitement at being at the Davis Cup.
For video that contains the LTA’s message about free tennis lessons and having a passion for the sport, check out this video featuring some of our tennis greats.
Tennis is for everyone – you don’t need any fancy clothing to play or be really sporty. Anyone can hit a ball over a net and get active and it’s a lot of fun too! With 1000 new coaches, each teaching 10 kids about tennis, that makes ten thousand new players who are into the sport by the time this school year breaks up!
Don’t miss out on the fun – to claim your free #TennisForKids lessons for your children, simply sign up here for a summer of tennis fun and also head over to my Facebook page for more from JuggleMum – just click ‘LIKE’!
Disclosure: This post is part of the #TennisForKids campaign with BritMums, sponsored by the Lawn Tennis Association in partnership with Highland Spring. You can sign up now for LTA’s FREE tennis lessons for your child – find out more here www.lta.org.uk/tennisforkids
I loved tennis as a kid and it really keeps you fit. I think it’s great that they do this campaign for kids.
It’s a sport you can do at any age so it’s great to get kids interested early!
I have tried tennis as a grown up and it’s really hard work. I love watching it so I think it is so important that they have things like this for children to get them into the sport. 🙂
Mookieslife
Watching it is always fun!!
Thanks for this, I have just booked Eliza and Isaac on a course
Oh fantastic! I hope they enjoy playing!
This is looks like such good fun and great to get kids being active. It’s been years since I played tennis but it’s made me want to get out and teach my kids now.
Yay- that’s the best result a blogger can hope for!!
Nothing near me unfortunately. That is what you get for living in the sticks. Both my boys have kids rackets and play in the street and at the park
When I interviewed Annabel Croft as part of this campaign, she said exactly that! You don’t have to go to a club (although this is where these free courses are on offer!) you just have to pick up a racket and play in the park with your pals. We can have great tennis players come from more casual arrangements like this just as much as we can from the club circuit.
It looks like you all had so much fun, I think mine would love it when a little older
We had a great time. My son has never picked up a racket before that day but he really enjoyed it!
What a wonderful day and fab account of the incredible energy of the day. Annabel’s passion was totally infectious and seeing the kids love their lesson was amazing. It was super that we all got to spend time together too x
Fab seeing you! x
Looks like such a fun day! And what a brilliant idea to give free lessons – my middle boy loves a bit of tennis, and I am sure my youngest would enjoy it too!
I hope you sign up and get some free lessons!
What a fantastic initiative, I am off to see if they do anywhere close to us! 🙂 x
Good luck – hope you get in!
when i was younger they never had tennis lessons near me but I did play badminton. Would love to play tennis
This really is a great campaign. I’m excited about my two starting their tennis lessons! It was lovely to spend the day with you too – you’ve captured it so well in this post.
Thank you – it was lovely to spend the day with you too!
I think #tennisforkids is a great initiative. Just trying to firm up lessons for Helen at the moment. It was great to meet you on the day and I was very impressed by Annabel Croft. She really is a great ambassador for the sport.
Great to meet you too John and I was impressed with Annabel too. She rocks!
This all looks so much fun! Really excited to see how my mini McEnroe gets on today – he seems in a really positive mood about trying tennis this time round! Here’s to him finding a new passion!
I hope he enjoys himself!!
Great post Nadine, sounds like you all had such a great time. Annabel seems so down to earth too, I love that. Poppy started her first lesson today and absolutely loved it, funnily enough she was doing what you and Jen were doing at one point! I’m so hoping it warms up a bit over the next 5 weeks, it was freezing today! x
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