Dear Parent/Carer,               

Year 8 Ball Crew Trial & Selection Process – The ‘Viking Classic Birmingham’

On Monday 21st March 2022, Year 8 students attended the second Ball Crew trial for the ‘Viking Classic Birmingham’ 2022. We had an exceptional turnout and were delighted that so many of our students were interested and inspired to be involved. The legacy that our students, past and present, have created from their previous hard work speaks volumes; from our 17 years of service to the International Women’s Tournament The ‘Viking Classic Birmingham’ and our involvement in The Davis Cup tournament three times.

Now that the trial has concluded, a group of Year 8 students will be invited to continue onto the next phase of the Ball Crew process, which will be to attend multiple training sessions led by members of Bishop Challoner staff with over 20 years of combined experience as Ball Crew co-ordinators.

As the selection process and training schedule becomes more intense, students will be invited to attend weekly training session’s right up until final selection on Friday 27th May 2022 (approx.). Students who make the final team selection will then continue to train weekly until the tournament start date of Saturday 11th June 2022. Please be aware that some training sessions will take place during lesson time. If you do not wish for your child to miss lessons due to Ball Crew commitments then at this stage we ask for you to have a discussion with them about continuing with the Ball Crew process any further. In addition to this, if any member of the Ball Crew team does not show progress in their lessons or does not ask teachers to catch up on any missed work, then they may not be able to continue further. This is also true of any individual/s who does not show a positive attitude towards learning or school life. Later on in the training process, there is also input from the LTA directly to help inform our final decision in selecting the best possible team of students from Key Stage 3. The tournament will run from Saturday 11th June 2022 to Sunday 19th June 2022. Any student/s willing to be involved in the final team will need to be available for all of these days/dates if selected.

As a school we are extremely proud of our Ball Crew prestige and we can truly say that the Ball Crew team would not be the quality it is without the amount of students who put themselves forward to trial and train, as they increase the levels of competition and therefore push each other to perform to the best of their abilities. Our final number of students selected from Year 7, 8 and 9 will be a team of 36 approximately and based on this our selection process will be exceptionally hard. It was great to have an excellent number of students interested, which made the trial very competitive and therefore increased the overall standard on display.

If your child is not selected from the trial and/or training process, or does not succeed in gaining a place in the final Ball Crew team for the tournament, then we realise that this will inevitably cause some levels of disappointment. Hopefully, your child understands the rigorous selection criteria, as this has been verbally explained to all students at every opportunity.

We would like to formally acknowledge the commitment which all students showed by turning up to trials/training and thank them for being so dedicated.

For a full ‘Ball Crew Student Timetable 2022’, please seethe timetable tab above. Students will also receive a copy of this at their first training session.

 

Kind regards,

 

Miss Shirley & Mr Wilson

Ball Crew Co-ordinators

 

Ball Crew Letters 2022