Basketball stars drop in at school

PUPILS at St Peter’s Primary School in Woolston, Warrington, got a special visit from the BiG Storage Cheshire Jets Basketball team as part of the Hoops 4 Health programme.
Nearly 70 year five and six students took part in afternoon activity sessions with players from the team, covering a range of issues from playing basketball to healthy eating.
Deputy head teacher and head of PE, Helen Lea said: “We are delighted to have the Cheshire Jets visiting us. They have come to try and raise the profile of the sport in school and we will be competing in a competition against other primary schools in the coming weeks.
“We are really keen for the children to have access to different sports at the school. We’ve recently gained an Active Mark Award for delivering two hours of quality physical education a week and we have also received the National Healthy Schools Standard. Hopefully integrating basketball into the PE curriculum is something we are going to develop within school.”
Hoops 4 Health has been running for five years in the UK and the BiG Storage Cheshire Jets are promoting the initiative by visiting 40 primary schools in the Warrington and Chester areas.
Partner at the company Andrew Donaldson said: “For basketball to survive it’s got to be a community product first. Hoops 4 Health is a great way to get basketball in the community. We will have visited nearly 70 schools by the end of May.
“We’ve now got our stall set out to do 120 schools in September, which will make us the number one team in the UK for delivering the programme and will mean we visit every primary school in Warrington.”
Every child at St Peter’s received a free ticket to the BiG Storage Cheshire Jets next home game at Birchwood Sports Arena on April 20.