Year 5 - Tennis and Basketball 

Wednesday 6th September 

A huge well done to year 5 yesterday. For PE we had tennis, and as you know it was incredibly hot outside. We stopped for lots of water and rest breaks in the shade, but despite the heat the children all worked really hard. We started off the lesson with some individual challenges that we will continue with throughout the term and focused on control with particular reference to the forehand shot. The children were amazing at remembering the grip and technique from the lessons from last term and carried some of their knowledge across to this lesson. It did get very hot, so we went into the hall for some different games that looked at speed and agility which the children are able to transfer to the tennis game. Well done year 5, incredibly proud of you!

The children also have a fun ‘fact finding’ bit of homework to do if they wish!

To find the fastest speed of both male and female forehand shots and who they are held by.

Wednesday 13th September 

Wow! What another great lesson today. The children all remembered so much from last week, which they were able to take forward into todays lesson.

We started with our lesson challenges; keepy uppies and keepy downies. These are personal challenges to observe individual progress. The children do not need to share their score, they just need to remember them from week to week.

We then moved onto some warm up activities that got the children moving and transferring their skills to practice the ready position.

We then re capped the forehand shot and where it is most beneficial in an game, before moving onto the volley. We spoke about the similarities and differences between the shots and where best to use each one. We did lots of different games and activities to develop the children’s volley technique. In able for the children to look at building a rally with their partner, we introduced the serve, with some moving onto the overhead serve.

The children worked so hard, answered lots of questions and were very good at supporting one another. We had 2 children from the boys team who researched our fact finding challenge from last week, which was to find the fastest forehand in men's tennis and who it is held by.
The answer is 125 mph by James Blake. Well done to the boys. 1 point to you.

Girls, you still have time to catch up. This weeks fact finding challenge is to the best tennis volley players of all time. There are 6 listed, so any of those names brought to the lesson next week will earn teams a point. Good luck!

Wednesday 20th September 

Today in PE we started off our lesson by answering our fact finding question. Well done to Minnie May. She earnt the girls a point, which brings them neck to neck with the boys. We have a bonus point to be won as last weeks fact finder was un answered. This was to find 1 of the all time top 5 volley players in tennis. In addition, there is another fact finder for this lesson, which is to find the male and female Wimbledon champions of 2023. Good luck!

The class then moved onto their weekly keepy uppy and keepy downy challenges, before getting into pairs and going straight into a rally with their partner, trying to use a variety of the shots we have learnt this term. These include the forehand, backhand and volley.

The group were then split into 3 different groups, depending on how comfortable and confident they were with serving the ball. We had one group looking at the over arm serve, which really challenged the children, the under arm serve and the underarm serve with a bounce to allow the children to gain control of the ball. Each group practiced the serve from the back line, hitting the ball to the other side of the playground, they then looked at serving to a partner, ready for a return before looking at the rules of a serve and putting this into a rally. The children had to serve from behind a line, get the ball over the net and diagonally to their partner.

The children were then given activities to look at speed and reaction time to help improve the number of returns between their partners.

To finish the lesson we looked at how to score in a tennis game. Children were then put into games with umpires to keep score and make sure the rules were being followed. The children absolutely loved this, so we are hoping to finish off our tennis with a tournament next week.

Well done year 5.

Wednesday 27th September 

Today was our last lesson of Tennis, so it was tailored to be student led. The children were grouped and allocated to a court, where they had to devise their own tournament, umpire the game, keep score and demonstrate all the skills they have learnt throughout the term. It was a very busy and active lesson, with all children participating at all times, in different ways, lots of maths and organisation and team building included without the children realising!

To start our lesson, all the children took part in their individual challenges and then finished the lesson in the same way. Children were then put in to pairs to give each other one sentence on how they think they improved throughout the term or what they could improve on. We had some great answers where children had really thought about their practice and how they had performed.

Before we moved on to our new topic, we discussed our fact finder challenge and thanks to Tyler and Jack who between them earned the boys team 4 points, the score at this time is 5-1 to the boys.

The last of the tennis fact finder challenge is to find out why the scoring system goes from 15, 30 to 40 and not 45? Good Luck! Come on girls!

Our next topic for the rest of the term is Basketball. The children were introduced to this through a passing game, where they had to be alert and ready to receive the ball and return it through either a bounce or chest pass.

Well done year 5, you have been amazing!

Miss Thompson x