A generation powered by possibility: Behind the scenes of E.ON Next’s latest Kids in Sport Day

On a grey morning in Greenock, something bright was happening inside St Patrick’s Primary School.

There were tennis balls fizzing across a badminton court, nine-year-olds huddled over SPHERO balls, programming them through football-themed coding challenges.

In the middle of it all stood Judy Murray OBE – pictured above – urging children to move, laugh and believe in themselves.

This was E.ON Next’s latest Kids in Sport event, and it felt far less like a school day, and more like the start of something bigger.

More than just another sports day

Fifty-four P5 pupils took part – but this wasn’t about ticking off drills or chasing medals – it was about widening horizons.

Over the past three years, Kids in Sport has travelled the UK, blending football, tennis,
netball and motorsport with careers rarely associated with the sports field: STEM roles, medical pathways and energy innovation.

The message is clear – sport is not only activity and exercise. It’s also a gateway with a huge amount of life skills to teach.

In Greenock, Inverclyde, pupils rotated through workshops that developed public speaking, life-saving first aid skills, coding literacy and dynamic movement.

They met role models, handled technology and saw sport not simply as something to play, but as an ecosystem of opportunity.

For Judy Murray – mum to professional tennis stars Jamie and Sir Andy Murray – that ecosystem begins with one thing: joy.

“I’ve been involved in sport all my life,” she said as she stood in the midst of dozens of excited kids at St Patrick’s.

Judy added: “I’m a huge believer in the power of sport – not only just for the obvious physical and mental benefits it brings, but also for the life skills that can be developed by being part of a sport.”

She spoke with the authority of someone who has built champions – and the warmth of someone who understands that not every child will become one.

“Schools are the places where children should be introduced to all sorts of different options – whether it’s sport, or whether it’s the arts, as well as obviously general education,” Judy added. “So being able to bring a sport like tennis into a primary school and give lots of children across the course of the day to try it is incredibly important.”

Inside St Patrick’s badminton court – a modest, multipurpose space familiar to teachers everywhere – Judy and her Miss-Hits coaching team created energy that felt anything but modest.

“So much of what we have done today is about fun,” she explained during the day. “We’re making everything as challenging as we can and we are creating activities that develop the skills that you need to be able to play tennis.”

But she is clear: this isn’t only about producing future athletes.

Judy continued: “We want kids to enjoy being active. We want them to fall in love with exercise and activity from a young age, because that will stay with them throughout all of their lives – which will obviously put less pressure on our NHS and help them in time to understand how important it is to take care of their body.”

Then she smiles.

Judy revealed: “Someone once called me an ‘Edutainer’ – which I absolutely loved – so it’s part education, part entertainment; because you don’t get kids to fall in love with something unless it is entertaining them in some way.”

On this day, the smiles all around her suggested she had succeeded.

Levelling the playing field

St Patrick’s sits in an area of real challenge and resilience.

Opportunity is not always evenly distributed – and that is precisely why Kids in Sport matters.

Judy is frank about it.

She said about Greenock: “There are a lot of children who don’t get opportunities to do sport outside the school curriculum, so it’s incredibly important that brands like E.ON get behind this initiative to, I suppose, take physical activity into the schools to give every child the chance to enjoy developing those skills and to get a chance to try a sport they might not have otherwise had the chance to try – like tennis.”

Opportunity should not depend on postcode.

And for Scottish Labour Party MP Martin McCluskey, pictured above with Judy, the day carried personal meaning.

He once walked the corridors of St Patrick’s himself.

Martin said: “It’s so important that we have opportunities like this available for kids right across the country, and here at St Patrick’s – which is my old primary school – it’s great to see kids enjoying the activities today, and also learning new skills and getting opportunities they might not otherwise have had.”

Watching pupils move from tennis rackets to coding screens, the politician saw something else – preparation.

He added: “I think the tennis workshop with Judy Murray was a highlight, but the SPHERO Ball – where kids are learning to programme, which is obviously a really important skill for the future – was really interesting as well; just watching some of the kids interact with that technology, which is going to give them really good skills and hopefully open their eyes to all of the technological opportunities which are out there.”

In one sentence, he captured the initiative’s quiet radicalism: physical literacy and digital literacy, side by side.

Martin added: “It’s so important, not just for everyone’s health and wellbeing, and their own mental and physical health – but also that they’re getting the same opportunities here that kids in other parts of the country are getting.”

This is what levelling up looks like in practice: not rhetoric, but rackets and robotics.

The long game

Judy reflected on the role of St Patrick’s staff watching from the sidelines, saying: “A lot of it is showing the teachers how they can use the space that they have and the equipment that they have to engage often up to 30 children in what is, essentially, a badminton court – safely and while developing the skills you need to do any sport.”

This is how change embeds itself – not just in one-off events, but in confidence passed from coach to teacher to child.

Judy summed up her hours at St Patrick’s by declaring: “For me, it’s been a win-win – it’s been a great day.”

For more on how E.ON UK is supporting the next generation, visit our New Energy Academy here.