Schools

Our excellent team of Community Coaches deliver Chance to Shine across the county. The aims of the programme are simple, yet ambitious.

• Inspire children to be excited about the sport
• Teach pupils how to play cricket
• Ensure that they learn academic and life skills whilst they take part
• Support staff to teach the sport and to develop a culture of cricket within the school
• Encourage schools to compete, internally or taking part in a local tournament
• Help children to take the next steps to progress on their cricketing journey

The resources and session plans that are followed by Chance to Shine coaches across the country are co-written by Create-Develop and the Youth Sports Trust. Any teacher can register for access to the session plans and videos, free of charge via the Chance to Shine portal.

We are heavily over-subscribed for schools who wish to receive direct delivery from our staff and have the tough challenge of balancing ‘the need’ of a school along with our commitment to delivering a complete and sustainable programme whilst also supporting local out-of-school opportunities. If you believe that your school is a perfect fit for the programme, then please contact James Moss and outline why you believe your school should be a priority.

Rapid Fire is aimed at Key Stage 1 and is a fast-paced but simple game for the pupils to understand. The game is designed to minimise any time spent inactive and even involves the batters who are waiting, by having them cheer and count the score of their teammates. Fielding is a team effort, with more kit to collect than children per team, so nobody should be left standing around!

Each game only takes around 15 minutes and uses a controlled playing area which means you can have multiple games running at once.

Want to play? Watch the 80 second video below which explains how the game works. Rapid Fire was added as a badged event to the Kent School Games in 2020, so there should be an opportunity for you to play nearby.

Building on the success of Kwik Cricket, Dynamos Schools has been designed to deliver an exciting new brand of competition connecting to the elite via The Hundred.

Dynamos Schools introduces children to the countdown cricket format and provides a consistent experience across schools and clubs.

As the ‘official format’ for Cricket, you can download all of the latest information from your Youth Sports Trust portal, or download the ‘Teacher Pack‘ ahead of the first year of Dynamos Schools in 2022.

Kent Cricket will continue to run a County Finals for the following age groups:

• Year 5 & 6 (mixed)
• Year 5 & 6 (girls only)
• Year 3 & 4 (mixed)

For information on your local event, please contact your School Games Organiser. And for information regarding Dynamos Schools Finals, please contact Adam Hodder.

Download the Countdown Cricket App to your phone or tablet. [Android] [iPhone]

Paper Scoresheet

If using the App isn’t possible, there you can download and print a paper scoresheet.

To get a glimpse of what the Chance to Shine programme looks like, as well as seeing some of our coaches in action, please see the two videos below.

To view the full list of our Community Coaches, please click here and then click on the ‘Community’ tab.

Whilst we currently have limited opportunities to provide direct delivery to secondary schools, there is a suite of resources (both video and written lesson plans) within the Chance to Shine portal, which you can access for free by registering here.

Below is an example from the Key Stage 3 plans.

Our outdoor competition format for state secondary schools is Chance to Compete. Each year we host large festivals, from which the winner is invited to compete at a regional finals day with winners from our neighbouring counties.

Each year we publish the new rules, along with the event dates as a new article and via our schools newsletter. Typically these competitions run for the following teams:

• Girls, Under 13
• Girls, Under 15
• Mixed, Under 13
• Mixed, Under 15

For mixed events, there are no fixed ratios and schools are able to enter either all girls or all boys teams. Chance to Compete is not meant for pupils who regularly play hardball cricket.

The Kent Schools’ Cricket Association is a registered charity, set up to encourage pupils in all schools, state and independent, in the County of Kent, the Medway Unitary Authority and the London Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham to play cricket.

Having operated since 1948, the KSCA continues to be the main provider of competitive hardball cricket competition. To find out more, please visit the KSCA website.

Kent Cricket launched the Girls Under 15 Hardball league in 2017 and it has gone from strength-to-strength each year.

The competition follows the Twenty:20 format with teams competing first in a group stage, before the top placed teams invited to compete at Finals Day.

For more information about this league, please email Helen Fagg.

Schools are encouraged to nominate talented boys and girls to trial for their local area squads, which is the first step into the Talent Pathway. Click here for information and contact details for your local Area Cricket squad.

For cricketers aged 16 to 18, we do accept nominations directly to County Age Group squads. Find out more about the Talent Pathways and the relevant contacts by clicking here.