Cost isn't just money

Any career is going to cost money. Not only do you have to ensure that the basic level of the child's education is there (reading, writing and maths) to be able to deal with daily situations, but the older a child gets, the more specific, and expensive, the education becomes.
 

Education options

Scholarships have been all around me since I was at school. They come under different names because you don't always want to feel that being a "scholar" is the primodial qualification. Effectively it is though about "scholars". To gain any sort of scholarship or sponsorship or grant, you need to prove a certain track record, where a further investment has good chances of bringing fruit. There is a sort of "insurance" mentality in place. Pay your money in advance, buy yourself a certain time of peace of mind. For instance at school we had scholarships already at entry to junior school at age 7. A scholarship was a competition that you could apply for, you sat an exam, you had an interview, and if the school saw fit they could give the child a 25%, or 50%, or full scholarship.

What's in this for the organisation supplying the scholarship? Surely the cost is prohibitive?
 

Need a scholarship?

Scholarships are cost effective. It is all about continuity, reputation and skillsets. If a school identifies a child they want, with the sort of upbringing and parentage which will further their reputation and standards, they will profit from that child. He will cause no trouble (if he does the scholarship can be swiftly removed!), and he can be further formed to the school's needs. It works very well.I don't remember any of the school scholarships "going wrong".

What is interesting is how the cost of such an advantaged pupil is integrated. It's simple, and it also works just like the insurance model. You get the real price of an academic programme that you are supplying, which is €x per head. You then add a percentage to the price of all of these pupils, say 10%, = €1.1x. What that means is that for every ten "normal" paying children, one "desirable", "selected" child, on whose further successful development the reputation of the school may well be founded, will be given a chance. That also implies that a fixed number of scholarships are available at any one time, which is the case. I think at my school there were only four or five scholarships available for 500 pupils.
 

The cost of creating character

Do the "normal" pupils object to paying a premium in order that scholarships are offered? Of course not. Most scholarship schemes are operating on a non-profit making, or purely charitable basis. Most private educational establishments are in their business to survive financially, but also to deliver an ideal paedagogical package to the pupils. Any financial proceeds can be put back into the business through improved facilites or teachers or programmes. How many schools have you heard of that are there to "make profit"? Not so many, and those that do arouse suspicion. The world of education has forcibly a moral perspective that must be in permanent evidence.
 

Do you really have ideal facilities?

workouttennis.com is not far off this model. There are 100% scholarships available. Here is the first difference. Effectively every participant on the workouttennis programmes receives aid. Some on 100%, some on 10%.

Our policy is simply to do with the nature of tennis. Sponsorships are necessarily graded for different sorts of talent. workouttennis.com offers help for finding these sponsorships, but a certain minimum price must be found for those whose background is unproven.

The 100% sponsorships are welcome recent additions to the workouttennis.com portfolio, since we have everything in place for giving sponsors value for money, and even transferring sponsorships to other players. We have commercial and "in kind" relationships with all sorts of organisations, so it is easy for us to work with almost any private or group sponsor.

The maximum workouttennis.com scholarship has a value of about €15,000 p.a. On a 100% scholarship obviously you don't pay a centime of this. This is a huge sum of money, but it covers all direct "tennis" costs for one year : - coaching ( group and individual), transport to tournaments, tournament fees, stringing fees, licences, balls, court fees, accommodation when outside the region, memberships. At tournament level, this is approximately how much direct "tennis" costs are. If you are a parent out there, and you want to put in place a budget for your child for an effective programme, then your figure will be around this.
 

A tennis parent's role

The advantage of workouttennis.com is that we also include in the tennis scholarship all of the indirect "tennis" costs - time involved in supervising a child through all of their study and tennis activities, supply of suitable premises and people for accommodating such a child. The cost of this is difficult to estimate, rather like the cost of being a housewife with children. The simple fact of putting an adult in charge of a child in theory has a cost. It'll be thousands of € p.a. That means if you're a parent, you need €15,000 p.a. for all direct tennis costs, and if you choose to send your child away to workouttennis.com, you relieve yourself, as a parent of the responsibility for looking after this child 24/7. That SAVES a parent a fortune. Obviously the parent must have confidence in workouttennis.com parental roles, but our reputation is based on this. We pride ourselves on our record in handling this type of player, and giving reassurance to parents when their child is in our care. The parent can always call the child home of course! It's never happened. The workouttennis.com deal is too good to miss.
 

Who we are

So let's say, in an annual scholarship, the tennis value is €15,000, let's put in the "parenting" value of €10,000 (this an arbitrary figure, but many housewives value their annual child rearing "work" at around € 70,000 p.a!). What does the scholarship NOT pay for?

The money that every player has to find covers the running accommodation costs of workouttennis.com, currently about €7,000 p.a. This is for food, laundry, heating and all equipment so that a child can study in a "home" environment. If you doubt these figures there are now numerous websites that calculate the real cost of rearing a child. A conservative estimate for the total pre-university period is €200,000! So, even living at home, a child will cost, on average, something over €10,000 p.a. for each of the first twenty years of his pre-university life. University is another story! Some workouttennis.com players combine university and tennis, so that is financially viable too. So the workouttennis.com figure of €7,000 reflects the typical normal cost of having a child at home at those ages. Children are expensive, don't you think?
 

Look at the player

Why does workouttennis.com insist on citing and varying these "running" costs? First of all, they cover the basic needs of the child. However the tennis programme may be adapted, that provision will always be there. We want to see the commitment of the parents to the project, and any sponsors or tennis schools who may be involved. We also want to make it clear that that child will, in that year, be receiving the best care and education. We commit ourselves to a certain calculable, or uncalculable, delivery, but we also must pay certain, minimum, bills. We need justification in demanding payment for meeting these bills.
 

Tennis tournament tour to France

Many parents are afraid of releasing their children from the home, their family environment, their local school, their Mummy and Daddy at such a young age. This is the biggest quandary! It's not the money. Many parents see that a tennis academy of sorts, like workouttennis.com, is the ONLY cost-effective solution to give that child a realistic chance. You cannot put this sort of thing off until later. It has to be done in childhood.

I'll give you a couple of thoughts. How many parents really spend "time" with their children? Most children I see around me have almost no contact with their parents. The children are shut away in their rooms with their multimedia, and do their own thing. They don't even come down for mealtimes. The parents meanwhile are working hard, and cannot give any meaningful "together" time to their children. In other words, parenting with the children at home is, often, not that great. Why not let your child do something he really wants to do, is gifted for?

The other idea I want to give you, is the idea of a child going away, to a boarding school for example. That is effectively what workouttennis.com is, a specialised boarding school. Once again, the child leaving home is the problem, it is not the money. The fact is is that about 99% of children intergrate very happily into a boarding school situation. It is their new family, and is, in my opinion, a great place for a child to develop his personality. That very distance from his parents allows him to develop. workouttennis.com has worked with a specialised boarding school for the last twelve years, and the results are little short of miraculous. Just for your information, the cost of a typical boarding school in my area is about €16,000 p.a. There are no "tennis" costs written into this. The "parenting" cost is! So, once again the costs are comparable. Maybe you haven't thought about it like that before!
 

Prepare your child for sponsorship