This Fridays placement was great fun as usual.  Last week Tony gave me my own coach my sport t- shirt to wear and it has made me feel really like part of the team.  I worked with Josh again in the pre school class.  However this week he was really reluctant to do anything with me and kept running away.  He is growing in confidence though and is engaging well now with the other coaches.  This is a positive progression as a couple of weeks back he wouldn’t talk to any of them hide away if they tried to talk to him.  His mum came and he was happy to take part with her.  It was good to watch him getting involved with the games and the other children.  I believe that he will eventually feel comfortable enough to participate in the sessions without additional support.  It has been very interesting working with him and watching the changes each week.

Next we had the home school group and the green group.  The games were the same for both groups and we were working on reactions today and agility.  I feel I have built up good relationships with both of these groups and am able to coach them confidently and they respond well to me.  The green group has quite a lot of big characters and therefore it can be quite a challenging session.  However myself and Alex (one of the other coaches) have become very effective at getting them in, organised and into smaller groups and started.  This has definitely made the sessions more manageable.  I feel that myself and the other coaches have a good rapport and I enjoy working with them.

There has also been a young lad working with us as part of an employability academy that Tony does as well as Coach my Sport.  He has been pretty closed off and not really engaging with the kids much but this week he was getting more involved with the games and helping the kids.  This was great to see, that he is getting more comfortable and confident.  I think it’s a great things that Tony is doing, belong these young people and giving them coaching experience.  It is also nice to be able to see him developing in the role as well.

Looking forward to next week.

Christina