Besides weekend team competitions, there are weekday courses and school holiday camps that can be fun and enriching! Here are a few examples to get you started.
The Paddo Tigers, Newtown Junior Jets, Redfern All Blacks and Alexandria Rovers offer junior football programs for boys aged six and over. Serious players may compete in the South Sydney District Junior Rugby Football League. For a more relaxed program, Balmain PCYC offers junior Rugby League as well as self-defence courses and meditation classes.
The Inner West Minis Rugby Union Competition kicks off on Saturday April 5 for boys aged under six to under nine. Both Petersham Juniors and Balmain Junior Rugby Club compete and offer weekly trainings. The clubs also have further opportunities for tweens and young teenagers.
Meanwhile, girls can compete in netball via the City of Sydney Netball Association, or they can join girls’ soccer! Age need not be a barrier: girls and boys aged one-and-a-half to seven can play soccer with Little Kickers at Redfern on Friday or Saturday mornings.
Glebe District Hockey Club provides beginners’ or “Minkey” hockey on Saturday mornings for girls and boys aged five to nine. Teams can enter competition hockey in the under eleven to under seventeen categories.
To entertain kids during the April vacation, you could consider a holiday sport program. Sports Fundamental offers holiday camps, in addition to a multi-sports program at Alexandria during school terms. Sydney Uni Sport and Fitness runs over ten different types of camps for youths aged five to fifteen. Their April camps include archery, fencing, girls’ soccer, water polo, netball, basketball and rugby. Budding basketballers could also consider the Skills and Drills Basketball Camps run at Alexandria by the City of Sydney Basketball Association.
Whilst participating in seasonal sports helps our children to learn diverse skills and keep interested, it remains important to make sport a familiar part of their routine. All-year-round sports like tennis, swimming and dancing are also a great idea to build confidence from continual improvement. City Community Tennis, for example, runs a beginners-to-advanced children’s program in five convenient locations: Alexandria, Beaconsfield, Glebe, Surry Hills and Rosebery. Their after-school trainings and holiday camps include the Hot Shots program, where beginners can enjoy smaller courts and smaller racquets to ease themselves into the game. You can even register for a free family barbeque and kids’ tennis day on April 5 or June 28.
The above activities are simply a starting point; there are many exciting opportunities for sport that our local children are waiting to discover. Families involved in local sport this winter can revive a sense of team spirit and community, as well as take pride in their achievements and benefit their health.
