Hockey Heroes is a fun and welcoming 8-week programme aimed at children aged 5-8. The sessions focus on helping children develop some physical hockey superpowers such as dribbling, passing and goal scoring, but also places as much emphasis on character development superpowers including teamwork, communication, perseverance and respect. Specially designed plastic hockey sticks and a larger, lighter safer ball means it can be played on any indoor or outdoor surface.
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Hockey Heroes is for children aged 5-8 years that are new to hockey and focuses on fun and enjoyment. The programme recognises the important role that parents play in encouraging their children to be active and to develop an interest in sport. Certain elements within the programme have been specially designed to maximise parental interest, engagement and involvement.
It also brings parents to the club, so think about offering some Back to Hockey or Walking Hockey alongside the junior sessions to further engage them in the club.
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Hockey Heroes is designed to help with the recruitment of juniors into clubs by providing a stepping stone towards membership for children and parents who have little or no experience of hockey.
The programme is a pre-designed fully branded 8-week course that provides clubs with all the activity, game content and equipment for the 8 weeks’ worth of delivery.
An online management system allows clubs to register, manage and promote their Hockey Heroes sessions and children who book onto Hockey Heroes receive a bespoke equipment pack direct to their house designed to build the excitement prior to attending the club.
Clubs receive a financial kickback for every child who books onto the programme.
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- ClubSpark - An online management system that allows clubs to register, manage and promote their Hockey Heroes sessions and makes the sessions easily found by potential players. To access the system, please contact us and we will send you your club's bespoke sign up link for ClubSpark so your club can create a free account. You will then receive guidance on how to register your sessions on the site.
- Marketing Portal - An online portal where you can access and personalise marketing materials like posters and social media content to support with promotion of your sessions. In addition clubs receive a marketing pack which includes flyers and posters.
- Club Delivery Guide: A comprehensive club delivery guide which takes clubs through all the steps involved in delivering Hockey Heroes.
- Hockey Hub: Sign up to access a range of Hockey Heroes coaching videos, activity cards and resources. To provide your coach with a prescribed eight week programme of content to create an enjoyable environment, tailored towards the individuals attending.
- Club Development Manager - Don’t forget to catch up with your local Club Development Manager to share your ideas and they can provide bespoke advice and guidance.
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To deliver the programme clubs need to
- Request the Hockey Heroes Club Charter, sign and return to EH
- Pay the Hockey Heroes annual club delivery fee
- Arrange for 2 volunteers aged 18+ to attend the on-line delivery training, complete an enhanced DBS check and undertake the England Hockey on-line Safeguarding course
- Ideally deliver 2 blocks of 8 week sessions between September and August in any one year
- Engage with 3 local primary schools
- Find a suitable venue, day and time slot
- Sign up for ClubSpark and Stripe and set up session dates – ideally allow up to 8 weeks to allow advertising
When can our Club sign up for Hockey Heroes?
Clubs are unable to deliver Hockey Heroes sessions until the Club has returned the Hockey Heroes Charter. All training must be completed prior to session commencing. Training takes place:-
Autumn term - August and September
Winter term - January
Spring/Summer term - Additional training may be available after January subject to demand.
If you would like to receive further details please contact hockeyheroes@englandhockey.co.uk or speak to your relevant Club Development Manager.
Here are some Hockey Heroes testimonials from clubs who already deliver the programme!
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Hockey Heroes has been a great initiative for us as a club, it replaces our junior recruitment tactics for 5–8-year-olds which were a bit hit or miss and we now have a plan which we can repeat for September to December, January to March and April to June blocks. We work with local schools who distribute our flyers for pupils, and this gives us on average 20 new members a year. We intend to repeat this every year. – Jon Keep Club Chair
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Long Buckby are a small friendly club in West Northants, we have run Hockey Heroes several times and it has helped increase our junior numbers, it has given us an easy way to advertise and to help us recruit new volunteers to coach our youngest juniors. Amanda Becker - Junior Lead
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Alford decided to join the Hockey Heroes programme as many of our juniors were joining the senior section and playing adult games which, we were pleased to see, we noted that numbers of our juniors under the age of 10 were not as strong as they had been in past years. We set up Hockey Heroes sessions before our normal junior session and were delighted to recruit 20 new Heroes. Its our first year in the programme and some have transitioned to juniors. We hope to get numbers up to 20 again this year
Claire Wilson – Club Coach
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At Lindum we have a large outreach programme in many primary schools with the city of Lincoln and surrounding areas through a partnership with a local charity who provide outreach opportunities, and this has given a great experience of hockey to around 2000 children each academic year.
We decided to offer Hockey Heroes within the club programme to support the opportunities children were obtaining with the school’s programmes and we felt this would have a greater impact when trying to transition children from the schools to within the club setting, which it certainly has achieved. Matt Ingram - Junior Chair
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The club have invested a lot of time and effort trying to grow the junior section by working with local primary and secondary schools. We have always had reasonable results but never quite as many new members as we hoped! We delivered Hockey Heroes last year and it helped the club engage specifically with children in the local primary schools and within key stage 1 which we had never been involved with before. Feedback from parents is that the programme is well structured and enjoyable and as a club we like it because it is easy to deliver with the booking system and structured session already planned out for coaches and volunteers. Jason – Hockey Heroes Coach
Further Support
If you would like to ask a question or need further support please get in touch
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