Grasshoppers is a primary school programme introducing all New Zealand kids, aged 5-10, to tennis through a games based approach integrated with the school physical education curriculum.

 

Grasshoppers will develop each child’s basic ball skills - hitting, throwing, catching, and exercise - for use as a basis for a wide range of favourite NZ ball sports.

 

Grasshoppers is an initiative of the national body Tennis New Zealand, and has been developed by its Coachforce Officers, building on international best practise in the introduction, development and coaching of tennis.

 

Grasshoppers is endorsed by all six regional centres of Tennis New Zealand –Northern, Auckland, Waikato-Bays, Central, Canterbury, Southern - thereby providing a nationally consistent framework.

Tennis is a sport for life, and can be played across the widest age range. Unlike many other sports, it is gender even, giving equal opportunity for girls and boys to participate, enjoy and achieve.

 

Tennis is a safe, non-contact sport that does not need to rely on expensive equipment.

 

Tennis can easily be practised alone, and played with 2, 3, or 4 people. It is an individual and team sport. This makes it one of the easiest sports to continually participate in. Because of this, tennis offers small communities sporting parity.

 

Tennis is one of the most widely-played sports in the world. It is also an Olympic and Commonwealth games sport.

 

Introducing young people in New Zealand to tennis will contribute significantly to a healthier, more active population. This is a core priority of SPARC, the government’s sports agency.

Grasshoppers has been introduced to 20 schools around the country in a pilot programme in the last school term of 2007, starting in October.

 

With support from a national partner, Grasshoppers will then be introduced to the 2,059 primary schools throughout New Zealand.

Grasshoppers is provided as a kit to school teachers and club coaches.

 

The Grasshoppers programme is supported with individual training for the teachers who will be presenting it.

 

The Grasshoppers kit includes:

Grasshoppers can easily manage 30 children with one coach and one teacher.

 

The programme’s most significant benefit is that all children are active at all times – no standing in lines.

Schools will pay $1100 +gst for the resource kit. This provides more than $2,500 value per year.

Each child is requested to pay $5 to cover the cost of the accredited coach.

For more information on Grasshoppers, please contact:

Anita Zuber, SportsForce Tennis Development Officer, 
email sportsforce@tenniswaikatobays.co.nz   
Phone: 07 8568181 ext 7 or mobile 027 475 7523