Tennis Federation Supports Schools

By Flynn Bush

On Wednesday, November 13th, a promise was kept, and local children will benefit because of it. That afternoon, two representatives from the Tennis Federation of the Cayman Islands (TFCI) were on hand at the Department of Education Services (DES) headquarters to deliver some much needed equipment to several PE teachers.

Back at the end of October, during an in-service day, the federation provided one day training on the basics of teaching tennis to children. All of the public school primary PE teachers were present for that training, and were given the tools to get a program started in their respective schools. TFCI saw their enthusiasm and, along with the federations desire to grow the sport in the younger age groups, made a commitment to use some of their world governing-body-provided-funds to help these teachers get off to a good start.

The package provided to each school’s PE teacher included a bag of tennis balls, four rackets, some line markers, and a pop-up net. Senior Schools Improvement Officer, Ms. Gloria Bell, had this to say. “The Department of Education Services greatly appreciates this generous donation of tennis equipment to our Primary Schools in addition to the coaching sessions that were provided to the teachers in October. With these additional resources, teachers will be better equipped to confidently and competently teach the new PE Curriculum which includes tennis as part of net and ball skills. This also gives our students an opportunity to be exposed to an additional sport.”

The federation was only too happy to hear this, as they felt very strongly about the donation being able to help youngsters as well. Vice President, Kary Claybourn, who along with Aysha Jackson was there to make the presentation. She was able to make a statement on behalf of the federation and stated, “We are delighted to be able to present the government primary schools with the tennis equipment we have been sent by the International Tennis Federation based in the UK. We want all the children to experience the fun and excitement of this wonderful sport.”

AS anyone who lives in the Cayman Islands knows, we are part of a very diverse community. This means that our children will have very diverse interests and talents. For a place so small to be able to have a wide variety of sporting options for these youngsters is a great thing. Therefore, by growing the number of students who are exposed to sports such as tennis is a benefit to our populace. This is especially since we have such dedicated and enterprising PE teachers, as well as the support of a strong and committed federation. With this donation, the public primary schools are now better prepared to develop this lifelong sport.