With Wimbledon starting in just a few days, the tennis season is in full swing. And students at Marlwood School now have the luxury of playing on refurbished courts.

The tennis and netball courts have been power cleaned and the lines repainted.

Work was organised and funded as a joint project between the school and FOMS (Friends of Marlwood), a community group that supports the school, and completed by AP Thompson Services Ltd.

Mr Richards, head of PE at Marlwood, said : “Over the 11 years that I have worked at Marlwood School I have seen the tennis/netball courts unfortunately become slightly dilapidated.

“Mr Planter and myself created a two-stage plan to get these areas up to a good standard.

“Stage one was to power clean the area and repaint the lines. Stage two is to replace the fences and the surface.

“I am so pleased to say that, with the support of FOMS, stage one has now been completed.

“The results are outstanding and most importantly several pupils have mentioned how much better the area looks now.

“The positive knock on effect is that students are now asking ‘When are we going to play tennis?’ as they are excited to use the area.

“We are so grateful that FOMS have the same ambitions as us in the school, that we all just want to make the school as good as possible for the students to learn.”

FOMS are now applying for grants and organising fundraisers in order to raise the money needed to move onto stage two.

Two Marlwood Dads, Chris Kedward and George Evans, are running the London Marathon in October in aid of this project.

Anyone interested in getting involved with FOMS should email marlwoodfriends@gmail.com