Letter of Thanks from Alfriston Special School
We would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to the Bucks Youth Cricket Trust for donating the excellent cricket kit to Alfriston School. We are so grateful for the generosity of the Bucks Youth Cricket Trust - the kit is just what we needed and is already being used. It has been great having had Keith's coaching and expertise, and all of the Wycombe Cricket Club's support with the Disability Cricket Festival and now we have some extremely useful kit - it seems like Christmas has come!!!! Once again, many, many thank yous for everything. Denise Knibbs (PE Coordinator)
DISABILITY CRICKET AT WOLVERTON CC 2010/2011
The English Cricket Association for the Deaf, approached me in the summer of 2010 to try and start cricket for the deaf in the Bucks, Oxfordshire and Berkshire regions. Quite a challenge! Initially I decided to focus on the Milton Keynes area. I sent e-mails stating the aims of the project. This was just prior to school’s summer holidays. There were some responses from some organisations but very little from schools. The timing was probably inappropriate with the summer break pending.
In the Autumn term of 2010 I resumed trying to make local contacts. In the meantime, through my son Stefan, who plays for ECAD I unexpectedly made contacts with the Northamptonshire ‘Talking Hands’ group and spent 5 weeks coaching prior to Christmas and 5 weeks after Christmas, successfully introducing cricket sessions. These sessions are now established and have been taken over by a Northants coach.
My initial contacts with schools in Milton Keynes were with the establishments that had units for deaf pupil, attached to mainstream schools. This provision meant that there was integration for deaf pupils in main stream lessons. Later, I made contact with a College that also had deaf pupils. We were able to offer cricket coaching sessions because we had gained funding from a number of sources. These included Bucks Youth Cricket Trust, a local community grant and a grant from ECAD. BYCT have promised further funding if the project proves successful.
The most successful contact has been with Chestnuts Primary School. Colin Kightley and myself have been leading sessions within the school since March 2011. The input increased two fold in the summer term. In the second half of the summer term we started an after school club for the children. Staff have been very helpful and the children, a joy to coach.
On one of the sessions each child brings a hearing friend of their choice with them and provides a very positive way of integrating.
The sessions are of course, offered to both boys and girls. There has been a noticeable improvement in their cricket skills, but of course, this is aimed to be a long term project. On 20th June ECAD were playing the MCC at Campbell Park. Children from “Talking Hands” and Chestnuts watched the game and then had a lunchtime meeting with the players. This was a wonderful experience! After the introductions, the teaching staff, children and players played a fun game of Kwik cricket. Everyone really enjoyed this. The England players were wonderful role models for the children a real inspiration and showed the children what could be achieved. Another plus was a lot of the children’s parents came along to watch and some joined in the Kwik cricket!
We are hoping to encourage the pupils to become involved with local clubs who have a strong colts section. Initially this will be at Wolverton Town Cricket Club.
We aim to organize taster sessions and although a limited number came along several were good players and ECAD are now aware who they are. We already have Friday night coach sessions for our Colts and we have invited the deaf children to several of these sessions. We have a coach especially designated to look after the children and we will have a trained signer. At the present time, I am learning sign language to help my coaching!
Contact with relevant secondary schools has proved more difficult. The staff reported that presently there appears to be little interest in the project from the current students. Additionally we have tried to contact relevant pupils through visiting teachers of the deaf and speech therapists. This has produced few results.
Thanks to Bucks Youth Cricket Trust we will continue working with the Deaf children again after spring half term 2012. We are also going to extend the project to children with moderate learning difficulties. This is an exciting development!
So watch this space!!
Kevin Pichowski
WTCC Youth Organiser