The Get Active! School Tennis Program is a sport & recreation initiative providing young students with the opportunity to Get Active! playing tennis during school hours at St. Monica’s Primary School.

Get Active! is supported and delivered by Riley Tennis and the St. Monica’s Tennis Club with emphasis on ‘forging links between the local primary school, local tennis club and local tennis coach’ in the Moonee Ponds Community.

Get Active! gives all students at St. Monica’s Primary School the chance to utilise their own Tennis Club located on the grounds of their primary school.

Get Active! is designed for the grassroots of tennis, introducing all students to the fun game of tennis during the school year. Throughout the program students will learn the basic fundamental motor skills associated with tennis including coordination, movement, agility and balance. They will also have the opportunity to develop a tennis technique designed for the modern tennis player with activities focusing on ground-strokes, rallies, net-play and serving.

We believe that participation in all sports, especially tennis, at an early age generates a positive attitude in young children and will help them develop a healthy and active lifestyle.

GET ACTIVE! Tennis Iinformation

GET ACTIVE! Report

Week 1 The Get Active tennis program at St. Monica’s Primary School has well and truly started on the front foot. There was an impressive turn out by the 5/6’s at St. Monica’s Primary with over 140 students participating in the first week of the GET ACTIVE tennis program.

The focus this week was Groundstroke’s – Forehands and Backhands. All students were briefed with plenty of demonstrations regarding the basic techniques required to perform each stroke. Soon enough all students were out on the tennis courts practising their ‘Federer’ forehands and ‘Hewitt’ backhands.

One of the main aims of Get Active is participation with plenty of cardio (running). Once students had an understanding of the basic groundstrokes, they were encouraged to move across the court to perform the specific stroke.

The 3 on-court activities were designed to give all students the opportunity to play tennis with lots of running and movement, which is the fundamental principal of the Get Active! program.

Here’s a description of what went on during our first week:

Starting Point: The Warm Up & Racquet Skill

The warm up and racquet skills were essential to kick off the day, where students learnt the benefits of proper a warm up before sport combined with short activities to practise the basic techniques required for the rest of the lesson.

Here students teamed up and practised the following basic techniques:

	Ready Position - Grip - Low to High’s
	Contact Point - Footwork - Movement
	Co-ordination -Control

The 3 Court Rotations

Once all students were warmed up and ready to go, we moved onto the 3 court rotations:

Court 1 – SAM (Around the World)

All students welcomed our new coach SAM the BALL MACHINE with big smiles when they saw what SAM could do! It was a tough work out for our budding tennis players, where they had to hit a forehand and/or backhand ‘IN’ then run around the WORLD (court) before they played their next shot. The last one left WINS the game. This game requires a lot of hard work and sweat!!!!

Court 2 – SIN BIN

This activity requires each student to hit multiple groundstrokes ‘IN’ whilst moving across the court, then running around several cones before their next shot. It’s gets very hard after a few rounds, when the lactic acid starts to build up in our players legs, so when they miss 2 out 3 shots……then they are in SIN BIN. Players must catch a ball to get back into the game. The last player left WINS!

Court 3 – King of the Court

During King of the Court, students were given the opportunity to team up and challenge other teams for the ultimate prize to be KING of the COURT. This activity is the ultimate test for the groundstrokes, as players must move all over the court to hit the ball and keep the rally going. It requires SPEED, AGILITY, CO-ORDINATION AND CONTROL.

LOOK OUT FOR WEEK 2 – when we introduce the VOLLEY!!!

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