Department of Community, Culture and Leisure’s Sports Development Unit organised and delivered a highly popular Badminton Festival at the beginning of November as part of their Primary School Sports Programme.
Thirteen schools entered at the National Sports Centre on Wednesday 3rd November, with 18 boys’ teams and 14 girls’ teams, with a total of 130 children involved in the festival. This is a huge improvement compared to last year where just 4 schools entered.
In the run up to the Festival, 68 secondary school pupils achieved Badminton Young Leaders status through the Badminton England’s Badminton Junior Helper Award delivered at 4 of the secondary schools. Along with qualified Badminton Club Coaches these Young Leaders delivered a 4 week programme of after-school clubs taking place at the local high schools for children from their local Primary School. This proved very popular with over 350 children taking part in these after-school clubs.
The Festival highlighted how much Badminton has developed within the Primary Schools with some great matches on show. The eventual winners of the festival were Ballacottier for the girls, with joint winners Ballacottier and Buchan for the boys, with Ballacottier taking the Schools Overall winner.
Hon David Cretney MHK, Minister for Community, Culture and Leisure said “It’s great to see so many children involved with and playing Badminton and it is also heartening to see so many Young Leaders getting involved and coaching these children and offering them the opportunity to play Badminton’’.
Badminton Development Officer Kerry Penswick explained:
“The changes that we have made to the Badminton as part of our Primary School Sports Programme have been really positive and I think that the number of children and schools involved compared to previous years is fantastic, and definitely something we want to develop even further in the future. One of the main objectives of the Primary School Sports Programme is to offer children sports opportunities at Primary School to then further develop within local Community Clubs’’.
-Ends-
Monday 8th, November 2010 04:38pm.
