Ball Crew

Year 7 Ball Crew Trial & Selection Process – ‘The Lexus Birmingham Open’ 2026

Dear Parent/Carer,

On Monday 16th and Monday 23rd March 2026, Year 7 students had the opportunity to attend the first two Ball Crew trials for the ‘Lexus Birmingham Open’ 2026. We had an exceptional turnout and were delighted that so many of our students were interested and inspired to be involved. The legacy that our students, past and present, have created from their previous hard work speaks volumes; from our 20 years plus of service to the International Women’s Tennis Tournament – ‘The Lexus Birmingham Open’ and our involvement in The Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup.

Now that the trials have concluded, a selection of Year 7 students will be invited to continue onto the next phase of the Ball Crew process, which will be to attend the first training session of the year, which will be led by members of Bishop Challoner’s PE Department, who have over 20 years of combined experience as Ball Crew co-ordinators. Details of who is invited to attend this session will be displayed on the Ball Crew notice board from 8am on Friday 27th March. SchoolComms will then be opened to parents/guardians, for consent to be obtained for your child to be able to attend the first training session on Wednesday 15th April.

As the selection process and training schedule becomes more intense, students will be invited to attend weekly training session’s right up until final selection on Friday 15th May 2026. Students who make the final team selection will then continue to train weekly until the tournament start date of Saturday 30th May. Please be aware that some training sessions may take place during lesson time. If you do not wish for your child to miss lessons due to Ball Crew commitments, then at this stage we kindly ask for you to have a discussion with them about continuing with the Ball Crew process any further. In addition to this, if any member of the Ball Crew team does not show progress within their lessons or does not ask teachers to catch up on any missed work, then they may not be able to continue. This is also true of any individual who does not show a positive attitude towards learning or school life. Later in the training process, there is also input from the LTA directly to help inform our final decision in selecting the best possible team of students from Key Stage 3. The tournament will run from Saturday 30th May to Sunday 7th June. Any student/s willing to be involved in the final team will need to be available for all of these days/dates (if selected).

As a school we are extremely proud of our Ball Crew prestige and we can truly say that the Ball Crew team would not be the quality it is without the amount of students who put themselves forward to trial and train, as they increase the levels of competition and therefore push each other to perform to the best of their abilities. Our final number of students selected from Year 7/8/9 will be a team of 84 (approximately) and based on this our selection process will be exceptionally hard. It was great to have an excellent number of students interested, which made the trials very competitive and therefore increased the overall standard on display.

If your child is not selected from the trials and/or training process or doesn’t gain a place in the final Ball Crew team for the tournament, then we realise that this will inevitably cause some levels of disappointment. Hopefully, your child understands the rigorous selection criteria, as this has been and will be verbally explained to all students at every opportunity.

We would like to formally acknowledge the hard work and commitment which all students showed by turning up to trials/training and thank them for being so dedicated.

For a full ‘Ball Crew Student Timetable 2026’, please see the tab above.  Students will also receive a copy of this at their first training session.

Kind regards,

Miss Shirley & Mr Wilson

Ball Crew Co-ordinators