Saint Lucia’s primary school table tennis season starts in January, and officials expect it to be the biggest and most competitive yet, thanks to a new training programme involving over 30 schools across all eight education districts.
Almost three dozen teachers are training to become certified table tennis coaches under a programme run by the Saint Lucia Table Tennis Association with help from the Department of Youth Development and Sports and the Saint Lucia Olympic Committee.
Led by coaching educator Aleena Edwards, the teachers are undergoing International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Level 1 training. They are learning basic strokes and skills, training methodology and organisation.
Saint Lucian table tennis is on a high after historic success in recent months, including Central American & Caribbean Games qualification, Pan American victories over Costa Rica and Mexico and a Caribbean Youth Championship title.
National coach Chris Wells, who works with the Department of Youth Development and Sports, told St Lucia Times that the course will help the sport achieve even more. Schools’ table tennis is set to begin in October.
“I’m extremely excited about what has been taking place for a number of reasons,” Wells said. “This is the first time we will be having so many teachers being trained to teach the sport at the grassroots level. Having a strong core of teachers with skills in all the different districts will always be a plus, especially with the way the coaching course is structured.”
Designed for entry-level competitive trainers, the course requires participants to attend at least 24 hours of in-person training, followed by a practical coaching evaluation. They must complete 30 post-course practical coaching hours and five hours of supervised coaching.
“Usually, the most you see is 30 persons, but we have a little bit more” Edwards said. “For me, that’s very impressive. And I heard that we had to cut down on the numbers, because obviously you don’t want too many people and not have enough equipment and tables to host everything.
“The group overall has improved from the first day to now. And just knowing that they stay to the end is also very tremendous for me, because some persons, after the first day, the second day, they tend to fall apart or fall away; they don’t come back. But this group in Saint Lucia, they’ve been very good. I’m very impressed.”
Edwards said other Caribbean territories can learn from what is happening in Saint Lucia. She is certain that the island will have a bigger pool of strong, competitive players in the future.
(TF)
