Along with the highly popular and well-established Kal Kids gymnastic program, joined Jazz with Jess a few weeks ago. Fast-forward to term two in four weeks, and YMCA WA has again responded to the community’s desires and introduced another new program; Net Starz.
The future Caitlin Bassett’s of the world have the chance to participate in the ten week offering for children aged 4-7 years, which is inclusive of all abilities and genders. Net Starz aims to teach fundamental skills of netball while enabling children to learn how to play the game and participate in a team environment.
Term Programs Coordinator Julie Beeson explained the program has been introduced to close the gap for children who can’t yet participate in the netball program for eight year olds and above.
“The program has been designed for children born in the first half of the year like my daughter was. With how the school ages are now broken down she couldn’t play, but a lot of her friends did because they turned eight after June 30th whereas my daughter wasn’t turning eight until the next year,” Julie said.
“We had feedback from mothers and parents coming through the centre that they were in the same situation as I was - where their daughters couldn’t play - so we thought this would be beneficial.”
The sessions will be run by YMCA Kalgoorlie instructors Ally and Jess (from Jazz with Jess), and will be capped at 25 places. With 20 children already registered four weeks out from the launch, the demand for an initiative of this kind is evident.
“We don’t have any sporting programs so we’re doing this and a soccer program to branch out and offer different programs that aren’t really happening in the community at the moment,” Julie said.
With Net Starz running on Thursdays in term two, a similar offering will be available for soccer on Tuesdays. Both of these will run for ten weeks and will commence at 3:45pm on their respective days, for 45 minutes at a cost of $100 per child. More information will follow on the launch of the soccer program.