Bringing badminton to every child in the world

Media Release, Badminton World Federation, Dec 05, 2011: BWF Shuttle Time: Bringing badminton to every child in the world.

It’s time for… Shuttle Time!

The BWF Schools badminton programme, Shuttle Time, has been unveiled on its virtual home, bwfshuttletime.com, a year after the idea of the programme was conceived. Whether you are a qualified school teacher or a coach looking for a comprehensive badminton training programme to teach badminton to children and youth at a club or community centre in your neighbourhood, Shuttle Time will meet your needs.

With the strategic vision to bring badminton to every child in the world, Shuttle Time is an innovative training programme that aims to help teachers and coaches develop the skills knowledge and confidence to plan and deliver safe and fun badminton lessons to children and youth using the BWF Shuttle Time Programme.

“The strength of this programme lies in how it harnesses a range of web-based training resources to make learning effective and possible for teachers and coaches access anywhere in the world,” said BWF Development Manager, Ian Wright.The main training resources are a Teachers’ Manual (comprising of 10 modules), 4 lesson planpackages (comprising of 22 lesson plans), and 92 instructional video clips.

On 30 November, a series of the BWF Shuttle Time instructional training videos were released onto the BWF official online TV channel, BadmintonWorld.TV. These videos were a major part of the Shuttle Time training resource materials developed to complement and enhance learning.

Both bwfshuttletime.com and the BWF Shuttle Time Training Resource Web Portal then opened its doors a few days later, and the programme is now ready for teachers and coaches to register and gain access to the wealth of training resources made available worldwide with free access.

So join us in bringing badminton to every child in the world, and make badminton the most popular schools sport. Log on to bwfshuttletime.com to find out how you can sign up for BWF Shuttle Time today.

21 November 2011

Ten days to BWF Schools Program launch – are you ready for some fun?

So you have seen the pre-launch video of BWF Schools Program, Shuttle Time, as we count down ten days to the launch, we bring you a little more about what is to come of the program to keep you excited. Over the past one year, BWF Development has customized an innovative, fun and enriching badminton curriculum for schools and teachers all over the world to adopt into their Physical Education or Sports Program.

The program is free of charge and available worldwide, first in English language and subsequently in other languages such as French and Spanish. “We want school children and students to find badminton fun and cool to play,” said BWF Development manager Ian Wright. “This is the important foundation that will not only increase participation in the sport, but the ‘fun’-factor is what that will retain people’s interest in a sport as they move on in life.”

Ian continued: “Shuttle Time offers to teachers a ‘how-to’ introduce the sport to students. We incorporate a mixture of teaching manuals and video clips to equip teachers and schools to be able to deliver the program in their schools easily.” The heart of this program sits in alignment with the BWF’s vision and aspiration of enabling everyone regardless of their socio-economic background or place of birth, will have a chance to be exposed to the beauty of badminton.

BWF’s Continental Confederation, Badminton Oceania, had run a pilot session of the program in Papua New Guinea, and you can enjoy the photo gallery of this pilot on BWF Facebook page. This allows you to visualise the program in action. And watch this sample video clip of a badminton drill taught in ‘Shuttle Time’, and search through the gallery to find the Facebook photo(s) of students playing this drill!

04 July 2011

BWF schools badminton and coach education program one step closer to launch

The filming for ‘Shuttle Time’, the BWF schools badminton program and the coach education level 1 program that will be launched this year, was completed in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend after 6 days of filming. The production of almost 400 video clips involved 90 school-aged children and 8 elite players. Heinz Kelzenberg from Germany and Mike Woodward from the UK, who are the writers of the project material, have been based in Kuala Lumpur for the duration of filming to bring their expertise to the film set.

The filming for the coach education materials took four days to complete with 250 clips being produced for the coaching resource that will become part of an entry level course material for badminton coaches. A total of 140 clips were produced as program resource for “Shuttle Time”, the schools badminton program.

“This is a really important step forward towards getting ready for the launch of “Shuttle Time”, said Ian Wright, Development Manager and the key driver of the program. “The filming has gone very well throughout the week despite the heat in the stadium under the film lights, we are very pleased with the quality of the production and the patience the kids had during filming”, Wright added.

The production for “Shuttle Time” captured various badminton sequences and activities for school-aged children learning badminton. The goal of the production is to put together a library of resource initially in three languages – English, French and Spanish – to train teachers ‘how to teach badminton’ in schools all over the world.

“We can expect to have quality high definition clips available to support the written lesson plans for teachers ”, Wright shared in greater detail on the purpose of producing the video clips, “this is going to make it much more accessible for teachers who do not know badminton as a sport.” This comprehensive project has been in the making for the last 16 months and will bring to the world of badminton and to schools and coaches much needed educational resources for the development of the sport. This comes with the hope to give the popularity of the sport in various countries a much needed boost.