Ormesby Table Tennis Club is leading the way in encouraging young girls to take up table tennis through running a girls-only TT Kidz session.

Our eight-week programme for 7-to-11-year-olds, TT Kidz, launched in 2019 and the latest phase up and down the country started in early October. A total of 28 PremierClubs signed up to deliver the programme to nearly 400 children.

Ormesby signed up to the programme and chose to run a girls-only session, which has achieved great success with 16 girls signing up to the session.

The club’s TT Kidz Lead Activator, Malcolm Muldoon, who decided to run the girls-only session, alongside this ran a mixed session and a boys-only session. He recruited the children through local schools, working closely with the teachers and speaking directly to parents.

Before running a girls-only session, Malcolm had always delivered to this age group as a mixed group. He believes there is still value in this but the girls-only session had very clear benefits to the participants.

Malcolm felt that at the girls-only session, the participants were more confident to interact and all of them got involved in the activities with less reservation. The TT Kidz programme focuses on being fun, engaging and inspiring which Malcolm believes is the way to keep the girls coming back.

After the eight weeks, there will be a focus from the club to keep the girls engaged and retained in the sport.

Running a girls-only TT Kidz session is a great way to increase the number of girls in your club or league. It is also a great first step for volunteers to get involved, either those already in the club or those that are engaged via the TT Kidz programme.

Are you interested in using TT Kidz to engage more girls into your club or league? For TT Kidz specific enquiries please get in touch with [email protected] or for wider women and girls engagement questions speak to [email protected].