It was first ever experience to visit Lau Valley Primary Schools located way down the valley, East of Honiara which took an adventurous journey by the table tennis DNSS team by foot to locate the school with helpful direction from people the team met along the way and finally they were able to reached the school and introduced table tennis to the students.
The table tennis introductory session was conducted for the two grade 3 classes with a total of 46 students.
The two sessions conducted stole the interest of the students and hyped their enthusiasm to continue on playing and wanted to learn more about table tennis.
Due to time factor, the sessions have to be stopped but the children were invited to Multipurpose Hall from 3:00-5:00 pm on weekdays for training camps to further develop table tennis skills but the school will have to liaise with the parents for their consent before attending the training camps.
The backway school like Lau Valley is considered as very interesting school to further develop the table tennis sport as there is great interest by the students and also table tennis can be used as sports for development in this populated area.
The senior teacher Rex Maefia thanked the team for coming to the school with this program. For most of the kids it was their first time to learn table tennis and they hope the school will take the initiative and work with Solomon Islands Table Tennis Federation to further develop the sport in their school. Lau Valley School is one of the schools which have the potential to engage in table tennis.
The sessions with the students’ were organized and supported by the two grade 3 teachers Mr. James Kwaiga and Ms Loretta Maisi.
Acknowledgment is rendered to the school administration particularly to the Principal and the Deputy Principal for accepting the program into their school.
If further development of table tennis is pursued by the school, we hope to identify potential prospect table tennis players from Lau Valley Primary School to become champions and represent Solomon Islands in table tennis in the 2023 Pacific Games hosted here in Honiara as the Host City.
By Elwin TALOIMATAKWA
HTTA
Solomon Islands Table Tennis Federation-SITTF
