My first day at placement.  I was there for 3 sessions today and I feel that it went well.  I was nervous on arrival but I had purposely arranged with Tony to arrive early so that I had time to talk to one of the coaches and see what the session plans were. This was a particularly good idea as I was able to look through the session packs that Tony provides the coaches for each session and see the set up.  I also had the opportunity to meet and speak to the other coach and literally pick his brain for half an hour asking him as many questions I could think of about the sessions, the kids, his experiences and who plans the sessions each week.  The first session was for 3 year olds and with 3 kids attending.  1 of the children was very reluctant to take part and so his dad stayed in the session.  Alex (the coach) and I assisted the children in the games.  With the boys in the class being quite young a lot of the time was spent trying to maintain their attention and to get them to follow the instructions.  Which they did, some of the time and not others.  I realised that a lot of patience is required when working with children and that adapting and changing sessions might be necessary if they lose interest or disengage.  Tony did this a couple of times as the children had lost focus of the task and I thought that this was very good of him rather than trying to continue the same thing.  I tried to get as involved as I could with the children and help them as much as possible which felt good.  I like to get stuck into things and it helped me to feel more at ease when helping the children with the games.

The second session was for a group of home-schooled children.  Age ranging from 5 to about 8 years old.  This was a smaller session and because the children were older the session games were a bit harder.  Alex let me lead 1 of the games in this session which I enjoyed, and I am pleased that they are allowing me to be part of the team even though I have just started.  I had been a bit concerned at standing about not knowing what to do but they were very welcoming and friendly.

The third session was for 8 year olds.  This was a big session of about 14 children.  Another coach came in for this session.  William; is a student at the university, he is in his second year.  He was friendly and talked me through what we were going to do in this session.  This session was by far the most challenging of the day.  The children were extremely lively and loud and excitable.  Again, I got to do some demos with the coaches and work with a group of the children in the games.  I had to be on the ball in this session.  Some of the children were losing concentration, throwing the balls hard at each other or arguing over whose balls are whose.  At times it felt a bit manic and I was thankful that there were 2 other coaches there, but I did enjoy the session.  I realise that I need to be very patient and focused on the children when you are delivering these sessions.  I must be open and able to make last minute changes to the session depending on what is happening at the time.  I think that my first session went well, and I now feel more at ease and a bit more confident in my abilities to coach children.  I look forward to my next session.s