Young people in Maidenhead show off ‘serious skills’ at mini basketball festival

Young people in Maidenhead showed some ‘serious skills’ as they tried their hand at mini basketball during a sports festival at Desborough College.

The event saw 90 children from years five to six, and from 9 primary schools, shoot hoops for their schools in Desborough's Sports Hall.

Mini basketball - an adaptation of regular basketball for children - is played with a smaller ball, lower hoops and a simplified set of rules.

Desborough College hosted the event in partnership with Ascot and Maidenhead School Sport Partnership.

Emma Fitzgerald, from the Ascot and Maidenhead partnership, said: “There were some serious basketball skills on display.

“The coaches from Thames Valley Cavaliers Basketball Club were brilliant and the children had a brilliant time.”

The Cavaliers are a semi-professional basketball club based in Uxbridge running men’s and women’s teams.

It also runs youth outreach sessions, and its coaches were on hand to help teach the budding basketballers at Desborough College.

Children were taken through a series of skills stations to master the mini-basketball basics before hitting the court to play in several small-sided games.

At the end, each team was given a medal to be awarded to their player who had best displayed the Desborough College values: courage, kindness, respect and leadership.

Every child who took part received also received a participation certificate.

Emma added: “Our sports leaders from year nine and ten supported the event and were absolutely fantastic when organising, managing and leading all the schools through a series of basketball related practices and even refereeing small, sided games.”

The schools taking part in the basketball festival were: Braywick Court, Furze Platt Junior, Holy Trinity Cookham, Larchfield, Riverside, Lowbrook Academy, Courthouse Junior, Woodlands Park and St Edmund Campion.