Twenty-nine schools have fought their way through County, Zone and Regional Finals to fill the 32 places in the Butterfly National School Team Championships.

This is the 47th National School Team Championships organised by the English Schools’ Table Tennis Association at Under 11, 13, 16 and 19 levels for boys’ and girls’ teams of four players. The finals are to be staged at Hinckley Leisure Centre, Leicestershire on Saturday 23rd March 2013.

Haygrove Academy, Bridgwater (Somerset) will be looking to retain their Under 13 Girls’ title won last year and Kesteven & Grantham Girls’ School (Lincolnshire) the Under 19 Girls’ title which they have held for the last four consecutive years. However, they will have strong opposition from schools who frequently reach this stage of the event including Morpeth School, Tower Hamlets (London East) in the U19 Girls and Thornaby Academy, Stockton on Tees (Cleveland) in the U13 Girls respectively.

In other events, teams from Calday Grange Grammar School, West Kirby (Merseyside); London Academy, Edgware (London North); Northfield School & Sports College, Billingham (Cleveland); Bramley Sunnyside Junior School, Rotherham (South Yorkshire); Walton Girls’ High School, Grantham (Lincolnshire) and Chalfont St. Peter Primary School (Buckinghamshire), who have all done well in previous years, could make their mark.

Other teams who reached this stage of the event as winners of the four Regional Finals held in Bournemouth, South Croydon, Blackburn and Grantham will also be playing hard to try to become Butterfly School Team Champions.

Joining the VIPs will be guest presenter Kelly Sibley, four times England Women’s Champion who successfully defended her England Senior National crown earlier this month after a monster seven-game marathon final.

She completed a successful tournament by also taking the Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles. Kelly is no stranger to participating in schools’ events – she was ESTTA Under 13 Individual Champion in 2001 and the first winner of the UK School Games Girls’ Individual title in 2006.

A full list of participating schools can be found on the ESTTA website www.estta.org.uk under Events/Results.