This week was another busy week at placement as the semester is soon coming to an end.

On Wednesday I attended Castleview Primary for the play unified club. This week Craig was there and when I arrived he had some activities set out. He then explained to me what the activities were and asked if I had any other ideas. So when the children come in they all got a basketball and just played around for the first 10 minutes. Then they all lined up and done some passing drills. They then done a shooting drill. This week Craig had a smaller hoop set up which is easier for the children to reach. So to begin with they just took a shot. But then Craig added in a pass then they took their shot. This session went well.

Then on Wednesday after school I attended Fallin primary school for an after school archery club. This was the final week of the archery club. So as usual the children got split into teams and me, Rebecca and Ronan got selected as group leaders. This week my team was a person short so I had to join in to make up numbers. This was great fun and it got quite competitive. This was a good session but it can become quite challenging as the children can get quite loud and hard to handle. But this was resolved when Craig asked the children to quite down.

On Friday I attended an after school dance club at Fallin Primary. This club is slightly different as it invites children and their parents. Rebecca led this class and it was nice to see her coaching a session in her comfort zone. I joined in with the children in this session. This was a good session and everyone enjoyed it.

-Chloe

This week at placement I was busy again making up hours since we are nearly coming to the end of the semester.I took part in a few different activities this week.

On Wednesday I attended Castleview Primary at the Raploch Community Campus for a lunch time play unified session. This week Craig couldn’t make it so I had to collect the basketballs from him and head to the primary school. Me and Zoe took the lunchtime club. Craig had asked if I could do a similar session to last week. The kids came in and got a basketball and just had a play around to start with. Then I set out some cones for them to do some dribbling. Some of the children done this but others didn’t seem as keen. I then had to quickly improvise to try get everyone involved. One girl wanted to talk instead of playing so I came up with an idea which kept her involved. I got the children in a circle and they had to bounce the ball to each other and whoever got the ball had to tell everyone their name and a fun fact. This seemed to keep them interested. Then they just went back to some free time for the last 5 minutes.

Then on Wednesday after school I attended Fallin Primary School for an archery club. The children at this session are quite hyper and loud. The children got split into 3 groups. They started of having 2 arrows each and then this increased to 3. Then they had team games and they all become very competitive. Craig added in a cone to hit as a target and this gave them 15 points. Many of them tried to aim for this and a few did hit it and the room exploded with noise when they did. I also got another shot this week to try win it all for my team. But I drew with another team.

Finally on Thursday I attended the Peak for curling with a group of children who had ASN. I started off with the group of wheelchair users. It was interesting to see how curling can be adapted. The individuals get a stick and can play whilst sitting in their wheelchair. It does require some arm strength so it can be hard. One individual struggled as they didn’t have the full use of their arms and they then became disengaged because they couldn’t do it. So he then got a curling brush to sweep the ice so that he was still doing something related to the sport. I then moved up to the larger group and watched them take part in a team game.

I have had another busy week and look forward to next week!

-Chloe

This week I was quite busy with placement to try and make up a few hours since I am later at starting. On Wednesday I attended Raploch Community Campus for a lunchtime multi sports session and I also attended an after school archery session at Fallin primary school.

Before attending placement I was slightly nervous which to me is normal as I always get nervous before starting new things. But I was soon put to ease when I attended my first session. Craig met me at the campus and he explained to me that the campus has 3 separate primary schools within it. Also that there would be children from mainstream school attending and also children from the ASN school. This session was basketball and consisted of familiarisation with the ball, dribbling, passing and shooting exercises. The children were all very keen to attend this session. I found that when children were taking part in the drills it was important to give them encouragement as it kept them trying hard. I also had to slightly adapt a drill as there was a girl with a walking frame who wasn’t able to dribble the ball round the cones. So I then suggested that she missed out the dribbling and tried to take a shot and she was more than happy to do this. Another thing I found which was pleasing was how encouraging and inclusive the children from mainstream school are towards the children from the ASN school. I thoroughly enjoyed this session and look forward to the next few weeks.

Also on Wednesday I attended Fallin primary school for an archery club with primary 6/7. This club started last week but I was unable to attend due to having the dentist. I didn’t really know what to expect at first as archery isn’t something I have ever taken part in. When I first arrived the children were very loud and were misbehaving. But I feel like this was due to excitement. They were very eager to get started and one of the girls showed me how to hold the bow and how to put my arrow in as I had missed last weeks session. The children really enjoyed taking part and I even got the chance to have a shot-i managed to hit an 8! I look forward to attending this session next week.

Then on Friday I attended a Boccia Festival. I attended this session with some of my class mates. We helped fill out some scoresheets to start with and then got paired up to be referees on the courts. We then took it in turns to referee and fill in the score card. I enjoyed this as I’ve never really had the chance to referee before. The children all tried really hard and enjoyed this event. Ive also been asked to attend a Monday night Boccia session and get my level 1 Boccia coaching.

-Chloe

I contacted Craig earlier this week to ask if he knew anything about how much longer my PVG was going to be as I was starting to get worried about making up my 30 hours. He then got back to me and he contacted Disclosure Scotland for me. We then found out that my check had been approved and my updated PVG would be with me in a few days. I have since then received my PVG. Im finally excited to be able to start my placement in the schools.

Craig has been good with emailing me with many opportunities. I am going to be attending 2 clubs within schools next week. One of the clubs is an Archery Club at Fallin Primary School and is aimed at primary 6/7. I am looking forward to assisting Craig at this club as archery isn’t something I have ever been able to take part in. So I am looking forward to seeing how it is done. Theres also another club which is a multi sports club at Raploch Community Campus. This involves children playing sports such as football, Boccia, athletics and many other sports.Im also looking forward to this opportunity as ill be able to assist in giving the children something to do during their lunchtime. This may also allow for children to take interest in new sports and try new things.

Also next Friday I am attending a Boccia Festival at the Peak as an event assistant. This is being run by Scottish Disability Sport and Active Stirling. This event is on for 4 hours so this is a good opportunity to get a good few hours in. Im looking forward to this event as I enjoyed having a taster of Boccia at the previous parasport event.

I look forward to writing more next week once I’ve got out into the schools and helped at the event. Im just so glad I can finally start. Better late than never!

This week I finally got to begin my volunteering. I arrived at The Peak for 8:45 AM and was met by Craig who took me in to the hall where the event was taking place. I then helped some of the staff with equipment and brought this into the hall. To begin with I felt a little nervous as I’d never really helped at such an event before. But once I got started I felt at ease.

I was put in a group with an Active Schools Coordinator from Falkirk. In my group there was 9 children. This group started off at Boccia. This was a new sport for me to learn and was good to see it being played. I picked up quickly on this and then I got the offer of refereeing a game. This involved me having a red and blue cone and when it was blues turn I held up the blue cone so that the children knew when to go. I had fun doing this but at times I found it difficult to decide which ball was closer to the white ball.

The next activity my group moved onto was badminton. The children were split into two groups. One group played games of badminton while the other group played target practice. There were a series of hula hoops set out and the children had to try and get balls and shuttlecocks in the hoop. A couple of the older boys got bored of the target practice after a while so I then gave them a challenge and told them what hoop to aim for.

After this my group then moved onto swimming. Whilst the group were taking part I just observed as there wasn’t much I could do. The children were in the water with Active Stirling staff and swimming teachers.

The next activities were football and athletics. The football started off as drills and then moved onto a game. Then when the children moved onto athletics they worked on three different aspects: running, throwing and jumping. The first activity was hurdles which involved them running and jumping over obstacles. Then the throwing involved throwing a ball, throwing a bean bag and then moved onto throwing a javelin. Some of the children could throw the javelin really far even managing to hit the back wall. Then the final session was jumping so the children jumped on a mat and got to measure how far they could jump.

Then after lunch the activities were climbing and curling. The children got the chance to climb up and down the climbing wall. Some were slightly nervous about doing this but they all gave it a good shot. This was cut short as the children were running out of time. They then got a short time curling. This involved them having the chance to use a stick to try push the curling stones to see how far they could get it.

I enjoyed being able to watch different activities and learn some new things. In the next event or session I would like to get more involved.

I am still currently waiting to hear if my PVG has been updated. It is nearly 2 weeks since this was sent away and my mentor Craig said that this is round about how long it should take. Fingers crossed I hear back soon regarding my PVG being updated. With it now being week 6 in the semester I am starting to get stressed about making up my 30 hours. But I’m sure once I get started I wont be long in clocking in hours.

Craig has been really good with keeping in touch and has been emailing about possible opportunities. One of the opportunities is next Wednesday at the Peak helping at a Parasport Festival. This is being run by Scottish Disability Sport and Active Stirling. I am looking forward to finally getting started my placement and being able to work alongside other coaches and other students.

I also received an email from Craig about another event which is on the 8th of November at the Peak and the event is a Boccia festival. This event interests me as I have heard all about boccia but I’ve never actually seen it being played. But I’m unsure if Im able to make this event as I have my mid-semester meeting.

I cant wait to finally get started and make up my 30 hours!

Chloe

Towards the end of last week Craig contacted me via email to say that all necessary forms had been sent away and it would just be a case of waiting a couple of weeks for all of this to come back. Once this is all completed I will be ready to embark on my placement. I am looking forward to getting started and learning many new skills.

Due to not having started my placement yet I am going to talk about the seminar last Friday. I arrived at the seminar fairly early. This seminar was based on Career Awareness and Planning. I was given a booklet which had many different tasks in it. As Romy went through the slides she talked through each task which I had to complete.The first task at hand was to make a framework which Romy had already planned out for me. Then the second task was to structure my past. So I had to plot when I was born, my current age and an important event which has happened in my life. My important event was starting university when I was 18. Task 3 was to structure the most important things in my life just now and then rank them.

Following on there were a few more tasks to be completed. One task I enjoyed in particularly was structuring my future. So this task involved me planning what I want to be doing next year, in 3 year, in 5 years and then in 10 years. My wishes were based on my academics and my future job. I plan to be a primary teacher which requires me to apply for a postgraduate teacher training degree at the end of my current degree.

I feel that this seminar has been helpful and these tasks will be good to look back on and see if I have achieved my goals. I hope to have started my placement in the next couple of weeks.

Chloe Agnew

My Mentor Craig had arranged to come into the University to meet. He came in straight after my seminar. At first I was nervous to meet Craig, but who doesn’t get slightly nervous when meeting new people? But at the same time I was excited to hear more about what opportunities were available and what new skills I could gain.

When I met Craig he was friendly and easy to talk to. He wanted to take my interests into mind in terms of the activities I could take part in. At first he introduced himself and talked about his job with Active Stirling. He then went on to explain the initial plan for my placement which is: A 30 minutes session within an inclusion school at lunchtime and then an after school club at a primary school. But Craig also explained how there is often events on which I could also go along to. He also let me know that he could assist in getting me coaching badges and I could also attend any courses which I may be interested in.

The following week Craig had arranged to come back in to the university with some forms for me to fill out in order to allow me to start placement. The forms which I filled out was a PVG update (which is key when working with children) and a volunteering sheet. This was all fairly easy to fill out as Craig went through it all with me. I had to give over 3 forms of ID- my driving license, passport and proof of my address. This was to be sent away with my PVG update. Craig then told me that once these forms were sent away that he would get back to me in terms of when I can start my placement.

After having both of these meetings I felt excited to get started and be able to learn new skills which I can take forward with me into future careers. I also felt that volunteering with Active Stirling is going to be a positive experience. I look forward to getting started soon.