Report by Andrew Luo from Ramsbury Tennis Club:
I am thrilled to share an update of the LTA Young Person’s Welfare Ambassadors project at Ramsbury Tennis club in Wiltshire. As a young welfare ambassador for our club, my primary goal is to raise awareness of safeguarding among our young players, and promote a safe and inclusive tennis environment.
My team and I proposed the idea of organising a Safeguarding quiz for the juniors at our club. We hoped that it would engage with our younger players, conveying some important guidelines regarding Safeguarding while also making it as much fun as possible.
From the first week in October, the LTA and NSPCC held a National Safeguarding Awareness Week which provided the ideal time to align with this initiative. Firstly, I created a set of quiz questions that I considered would be relevant for our juniors. A week was then decided in which the quiz would be run and a launch email was sent to all the juniors, parents and carers giving them the necessary details.
The quiz took place at the end of each of the fourteen weekly junior coaching sessions, which finished 5-10 minutes early. We told all parents that this was not a competition, but a fun way of informing and improving everyone’s understanding on the importance of Safeguarding. Sweets were given to all the participants and many positive and appreciative comments were received from both juniors and their parents.
Recognising that our juniors are ranged between 3-15 years old, we encouraged the younger juniors to complete the quiz together with their parents and carers. This was so as we believed some questions would most likely be too difficult for the youngest and also, we wished to involve adults who would also no doubt benefit.
Here are some key statistics from the quiz:
- All 129 club juniors were invited, with 90 (70%) completed the quiz.
- The average score was 6, with an impressive 13 juniors (14%) scored a perfect 9/9.
- A £10 Amazon gift voucher was awarded to a randomly selected participant from the pool of those who answered all questions correctly.
Since Safeguarding applies to all, not just juniors and vulnerable adults, we extended the reach of the quiz by sharing the questions and answers with all our club members. The success of quiz has received the attention from the LTA Safeguarding Officers, who have not only commended our efforts but also recommended it to the wider YPWAs and encouraged similar activities in other clubs.
I would like to express my gratitude for the support and enthusiasm shown by everyone involved in making this initiative a success. Special thanks to our Welfare Officer, Mike Ferris and Junior Coaching Coordinator Roger for their invaluable support in bringing the quiz idea to life.
Thank you for taking the time to read about the exciting news. I look forward to sharing more fun activities in @Safeguarding @SafeToPlay with you in the near future!
Andrew Luo
Young Person Welfare Ambassador (YPWA)
Ramsbury Tennis Club