Petanque as an alternative sport in schools

vvIntroducing Petanque as an alternative sport into the Primary School system. Counties Manukau Sport invited the Cockle Bay Petanque Clubto take part in an Emerging Sports Have A Go Day in Otara on the 20^thNovember 2009. Ten schools of year 5 & 6 children were involved.


Due to the success of this day the Cockle Bay Petanque Club was asked if we could introduce the sport to other South Auckland Primary Schools on an individual basis. Our first School was Bairds Mainfreight Primary School where we were asked to carry out a ten week programme from the 30^th April to 2^nd July with the first five weeks coaching years 3 & 4 (7 & 8 year olds) and the second five weeks coaching years 5 & 6 (9 to 11 year olds) there were approximately 30 children registered with 20 to 26 boys and girls at each session.


The coaching sessions were of one hour duration from 3.00pm to 4.00pm consisting of 15 minutes organising the children into teams and running through the aim of the game & safety, 15 minutes throwing a boule over a piece of 4x3, 15 minutes throwing into a tyre, 15 minutes playing a game. After the second day with each group a shooting exercise was introduced. 


The sessions were held on consecutive Fridays, we lost three days because of the weather.
I found I needed four coaches per session to make things run smoothly and ended up with ten volunteers from the Club who were rostered through the period. 


As the school did not have a suitable playing area a playground with a bark covering was tried but playing with the distraction of the playground equipment in the immediate vicinity soon ruled that idea out.
The solution was to use part of a grassed sports field which had a concrete path on one boundary, four throwing circles 4 metres apart were marked out with chalk on the concrete and two parallel lines @ 4 & 8 metres from the path were marked on the grass, this was to define the minimum & maximum throwing distances for the players.


Our club supplied the required boules for the sessions these boules had been painted in 4 different colours with each team having the same colour this removed any confusion on whose boule was whose. 
In summing up the general consensus from our group was how polite and attentive the children were and how quickly they picked up the game, in short it was a pleasure and honour to be with them.
Counties Manukau Sport are keen to have us introduce the game to other Manukau schools and have made a monetary donation to our Club for our efforts.


Regards Warren Barrett
President Cockle Bay Petanque Club