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NTU and RacketsCubed deliver integrated sports and maths programme to local primary students

Staff and student volunteers at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) have been working with the charity RacketsCubed to provide tennis and maths tuition, and a hot meal to Dovecote Primary School students in Clifton.

    The initiative which involves NTU staff and student volunteers working with charity RacketsCubed has proved an absolute hit with schoolchildren from a local Nottingham primary school

    The sessions, which have been running since September at NTU’s Clifton Campus, provide half an hour of maths tuition and half an hour of tennis tuition, which is then followed by a healthy hot meal. The meals are designed by NTU’s catering team to give the children at the school a chance to try different foods from different countries that they may not have experienced before.

    NTU sport volunteers help to deliver the maths tuition and tennis coaching, whilst acting as mentors to the children.

    Adi Shah, Sport Volunteering Coordinator at Nottingham Trent University, said: “This initiative is a great example of a collaborative project in which a fantastic charity, a local primary school and NTU colleagues and students work together to support young people’s development. Our students gain real-world teaching and coaching experience and the children really look up to them.”

    The RacketsCubed charity was established in London in 2016 to enhance the achievement of children helping them to be happier, healthier and more confident. It now offers over 30 different programmes like this across 11 cities nationwide.

    Dan Trump, Schools Programme Assistant at RacketsCubed, said: “RacketsCubed is about breaking down the barriers in access to sports. Our partnership with NTU is to not just about providing the facilities, but to help young people think beyond primary school and have aspirations for the future. The student volunteers are really key to that because they bring their own experiences of where they’ve come from and what they do at university, and it brings it to life for the children.”

    The maths tuition programme was designed collaboratively with Dovecote Primary School to support year 4 students in the run up to their year 5 and 6 SATS exams.

    Tracey Barton, a teacher at Dovecote Primary School, said: “I was interested in bringing the children to this programme because I liked the idea of the mix of children being immersed in a sport, being provided with a healthy meal and of course having opportunities to have small group tuition in Maths. It really suited the needs of our school.”

    • Notes for editors

      About Nottingham Trent University

      Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has been named UK ‘University of the Year’ five times in six years, (Times Higher Education Awards 2017, The Guardian University Awards 2019, The Times and Sunday Times 2018 and 2023, Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023) and is consistently one of the top performing modern universities in the UK. It is the 3rd best modern university in the UK (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023).

      NTU is the 5th largest UK institution by student numbers, with over 40,000 students and more than 4,400 staff located across five campuses. It has an international student population of almost 8,000 and an NTU community representing over 160 countries.

      NTU owns two Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for outstanding achievements in research (2015, 2021). The first recognises NTU’s research in science, engineering, arts and humanities to investigate and restore cultural objects, buildings and heritage. The second was awarded for research on the safety and security of global citizens.

      The Research Excellence Framework (2021) classed 83% of NTU’s research activity as either world-leading or internationally excellent. 86% of NTU’s research impact was assessed to be either world-leading or internationally excellent.

      NTU is rated 5/5 stars overall and for Teaching, Employability, Internationalisation, Research and Facilities (QS Stars 2022).

      NTU is a top five university for widening participation with 25% of NTU students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds (HESA 2021-22). It was the first UK university to sign the Social Mobility Pledge in 2018 and was named ‘University of the Year’ at the UK Social Mobility Awards in 2019.

      NTU is the most sustainable university in the UK and 2nd in the world (UI Green Metric University World Rankings, 2022).

    Published on 24 April 2024
    • Category: Press office