In 2015, the Institute of Sport and Sports Science at the University of Kassel and MT Melsungen launched the joint project "Ball sports groups for primary school children" with the aim of implementing the conception, establishment and evaluation of ball sports groups in the North Hesse region over the course of a four-year project. The associated tasks such as concept development, establishment and supervision of the ball sports groups and scientific evaluation of the measures have been successfully implemented over the past four years.

In a second phase, the cooperation project will now be continued from January 2019 to June 2023 - building on the successful measures of the first term - with new, expanded objectives:

• New partner program: with the introduction of a partner program, many more interested elementary school from the region beyond the 12 cooperating elementary school to date will be given the opportunity to become partners of ballstars and offer ball sports groups at their facilities.

• Training and further education concept: The new partner program requires that a suitable further education concept is developed and tested within the project. Based on the proven student training of the group leaders, a further training format for the qualification of interested primary school teachers and also trainers will be developed and offered for the teaching of integrative sports games according to the Kassel model. To this end, a collaboration with the state's central training facility for sports teachers (ZFS) is planned. A didactically prepared collection of tried and tested game and exercise forms for implementing the teaching concept was published in 2020 by Hofmann-Verlag under the title "ballstars - Zielschussspiele im Grundschulalter integrativ vermitteln".

• Ballstars Day: The "Ballstars Day" event format will be retained and developed further. An annual tournament day with the advanced ballstars groups (grades 3/4) has proven to be a special offer for initial competition experience. In the second phase of the project, networking with interested sports clubs will be developed in order to offer children moving on to secondary schools a follow-up offer and to support them in their further sporting careers.

• Scientific monitoring: The scientific monitoring of the measures will be continued in the second phase of the project - following the development of our own test procedures and the implementation of initial studies on the technical and tactical characteristics of target shooting games. Further studies will be used, among other things, through repeated testing of selected groups to differentiate the development of children in ball sports. Surveys are used to examine the children's subsequent sporting careers. Didactic questions focus on the appropriate design and implementation of the integrative teaching concept.