Shuttle Stars programme proving a hit in Northumberland
A badminton club general manager hopes a new junior programme will continue to encourage children as young as five to take up the sport.
Mandy Tulip, who heads up The Northumberland Club, praised the success of Shuttle Stars, a Badminton England initiative, which is aimed at 5–9-year-olds and started in October 2024.
The project currently has eight children enrolled and focuses on building fundamental motor skills and co-ordination as well as enjoyment of the game.
“I’m really pleased,” said Mandy when asked about how Shuttle Stars was going. “I’ve seen patterns since coming. When I joined the club, it was post-Covid and everything was very slow.
“Now, if you very quickly get six to eight children, you pretty much know that come terms two and three, they [the sessions] are going to fill. When you’ve got six to eight children straight away, that’s a really good sign, you know it’s going to be popular.”
Mandy hopes to replicate the popularity of their 9-14-year-old junior programme and wants the children involved to stay within the sport and potentially progress through the ranks.
She continued: “Our junior programme for the older ones started off like [Shuttle Stars], in fact much less, three years ago. Now, it’s got a waiting list. It’s full as it has approximately 25 children.
“All the children who came along during the first term have come back for the second plus some more. We’re hopefully seeing a pathway where children can start at five and continue all the way up.”
Prior to the beginning of Shuttle Stars, The Northumbria Club hosted a badminton festival in September 2024 which saw 120 children attend and featured a carousel of seven different activities including practicing badminton-type movement, target practice and using the development kit.
Mandy added: “We invited schools in the area to bring along up to 30 children so they could get exposed to the sport. Generally, it’s a sport that they don’t tend to join in with until they get to secondary school.
“From that, the children got a flavour of what badminton is all about. After that, we started the Shuttle Stars programme, which is run in different stages. We literally started on stage one, which is very much aimed at complete beginners and younger age groups.”
The support The Northumbria Club has received from Badminton England, who have written all the sessions, was also praised by Mandy.
She said: “They’ve been really supportive. They supported us with funding to run the badminton festival.
“I applied for a funding grant so I could run the festival and have nine members of staff there. We’ve also got a badminton kitbag, with giant shuttlecocks, nets and pompoms – we’ve got lots of kit that’s tailored to the younger age groups.”
