PHYSICAL Education teachers and coaches from 13 primary level schools in Kingston and St Andrew participated in a coaching clinic staged by the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA) at Jessie Ripoll Primary on Tuesday.

The clinic was held to help coaches with the preparation of their teams for the JaVA/Phillip Greenland Developmental Volleyball Championship, which will serve off in late October.

After giving coaches guidelines on how to best impart the various skill sets of volleyball to children, lead instructor Steve Davis gave the participants an impromptu challenge to practise the lessons learnt on a class of Grade 5 students that had a PE session while the clinic was going on.

The children provided the coaches with very realistic challenges because none of them had ever played the sport of volleyball before.

Davis emphasised the importance of teaching the children to try to control the ball at all times, as opposed to viewing the ball as something to hit as hard as possible.

JaVA’s school development manager Major Warrenton Dixon expressed delight with the relatively large turnout of schools for the clinic.

“One can always want more but I struggle to recall a turnout this high for any of our previous clinics for this competition since its inception in 2010. We have had highs of 14 schools participating in the actual competition in Westmoreland and St Ann, but the representation at the clinics is usually less,” he said.

Each participating school was presented with two Molten balls courtesy of the North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation (NORCECA).

With a corporate partner since its inception in 2010, JaVA is still trying to locate financial backing for the championship.