Junior Squash Academy and Membership
Junior Squash Academy and Membership
Our aim is to provide affordable, inclusive and high-quality junior squash in our academy. Our academy is open to all abilities – from complete beginner to nationally ranked juniors. We want all our juniors to develop their game, meet new friends and, above all, have fun playing squash in a safe environment.
Joining our Squash Academy: We offer a great value academy membership which costs just £70 for the year. This includes access to our free Sunday and Saturday Group coaching sessions, insurance and off-peak club membership. New prospective junior members are very welcome to join in for a free trial session before committing. Please do contact our Head Coach or Declan Wainwright, (declan.wainwright@yahoo.co.uk), our Committee's Junior Squash Lead for more information. Our membership form is at the bottom of this page.
Our Junior Academy Programme
Our Head Coach, Zeb Young, England Squash Coach of the Year 2022, has put in place an excellent junior programme which caters for all abilities from age 5 upwards and consists of regular junior group coaching and access to competitive squash. He is also supported by an outstanding coaching team – all England Squash Coach qualified, DBS checked and with appropriate safeguarding training.
Junior Group Coaching: We have three dedicated junior group coaching sessions led by one
of our fully qualified coaches. We split our juniors into 4 ability groups; copper for
beginners, bronze for developer standard, silver for intermediate and gold for advanced
juniors. This ensures that the coaching is tailored to their squash development needs. Each
copper, bronze, silver and gold session lasts 60 minutes.
Thursday ‘Accelerator’ Coaching: We offer small group coaching sessions for our Gold and Silver juniors. Costs are £50 for 4x40 minute sessions on a ‘use or lose’ basis. Timings are 6:20pm to 8pm. Maximum 3 similar ability juniors to one coach.
Friday Group Coaching: this takes place weekly from 4:30pm to 8:30pm. A 12-session bundle costs £80 for on a ‘pay when you play’ basis. Group timings are Copper/Bronze (4:30pm to 5:30pm); Bronze / Silver (5:30pm to 6:30pm); Silver (6:30pm to 7:30pm) and Gold (7:30pm to 8:30pm.)
Saturday Group Coaching FREE *: this takes place from 2pm to 4pm and is provided free as part of the junior membership. Group timings are Copper/Bronze (2pm to 3pm); Silver/Gold (3pm to 4pm)
Sunday Group Coaching FREE *: this takes place from 11am to 1pm and is provided free as part of the junior membership. Group timings are Copper/Bronze (11am to 12pm); Silver/Gold (12pm to 1pm.)
School holiday squash camps: These take place during school holidays. These typically run from 10am to 1pm and cost around £25.
* Please note that our free weekend sessions do not take place in school holidays, on team match days and on West Kent box league days. See key dates for current timetable.
Our fully qualified, DBS checked, England Squash Coaches are also available for individual 1:1
coaching with juniors of all abilities.
Junior Competitive Squash: We also provide opportunities to play competitively against similar standard juniors to further develop their match play.
West Kent Junior Box Leagues - Juniors play all of their box matches in a monthly Sunday session at one of the participating clubs. Open to players of all abilities.
Junior Squash Team – we operate two junior teams in the Kent Junior Club leagues who play against other clubs throughout Kent. Invitational.
Internal Junior Box Leagues – Juniors play against fellow academy juniors in box leagues that change every 8 weeks. Open to players of all abilities.
Tournaments – We hold a free annual club junior championship open to all. In addition, many of our best juniors compete in England Squash sanctioned tournaments.
What is needed? All juniors must be members to take part in the coaching (this is important for insurance reasons). Juniors will also need to wear suitable eye protection and have non-marking trainers. Eye protection and rackets can be supplied by our coaches if needed.
Keeping our juniors safe
We want all our juniors to enjoy playing squash in a safe environment. You can find the details on our safeguarding reporting procedures and policies (including our junior code of conduct) in our policy section.
