Why Fives? Eton Fives Perceptions and Engagement at Holyport College

Natalie Lilienthal reports:

When Holyport College was opened in 2014, the school embraced Eton Fives as a unique link with its education partner, Eton College, and since then its pupils have been travelling to play on Eton’s courts in increasing numbers. In response to this demand, in 2024 Holyport College, Eton, Old Etonians, and the wider Eton Fives community funded the creation of three new Eton Fives courts on the school site.

In order to maximise the benefits of these new facilities, the EFA worked with Holyport’s Centre for Innovation in Research and Learning (CIRL) to carry out research to better understand the attitudes, barriers, and opportunities to further embedding Fives in the school culture. This included student focus groups across Year 9 and Year 12 players and non-players, with pre-meeting surveys, live polls and Q+A sessions, as well as a staff session.

The research revealed strong enthusiasm among existing players, significant barriers for newcomers, and a clear appetite for both social and competitive Fives opportunities. Student players self-reported enhanced reaction time, improved hand-eye-coordination and teamwork skills as a result of their involvement with Fives. Staff recognised wide-ranging benefits of Fives as a sport for their students and were enthusiastic about the equal accessibility that Fives offers across genders, abilities and neurodiversities.

The main obstacles to the uptake of Fives were the perceived steep learning curve given the many rules of the game, a lack of access to courts/equipment outside of lesson time, and the challenge of organising fixtures.

Recommendations included increased access times to courts and kit, adding structured and positive introductions for new joiners, varied ball options, enhanced fixture programmes, and a Coaching Activator course to support staff. Several of these have already been put in place and we look forward to seeing the positive outcomes in the coming seasons.

The full report can be found HERE.

Our thanks to Holyport’s Headmaster, Alastair Ingall, and Laura Longstaff, Manager of Holyport CIRL, for enabling this research.

If you are looking for alternative ball options for younger players or new starters in their initial sessions, we recommend low-bounce tennis balls or a foam ball alternative like this example, which can both be used without gloves.