My last day of placement! I was feeling a mix of emotions for this.  I was pleased to have gotten to the end but also sad that I was leaving.  I was talking to them other coaches before sessions started and they were saying that they had forgotten I was only on placement and thought I was working there with them.  This was a really nice feeling.  I am so glad to have made such good relationships with the other guys.  They are all relatively young and at the beginning of their coaching careers but already I can see that there coaching abilities are great with children and they they will continue to do well.
We had 2 new children at the pre school group which was great and we got to do some fun obstacle courses.  The kids really enjoyed this session and were really engaged which was nice.
The next two group also went well and the kids were trying really hard this week.  I always think it is quite amazing the energy they still have coming to these sessions on a Friday after a long week at school.
last session is the day was Dodgeball.  This session was the most challenging it has been.  After the warm up and exercises we split the kids into teams.  I was helping one team when I notice that there were two boys arguing and being quite nasty to each other.  I told them that was enough and they needed to focus on the game and what they were doing.  They weren’t really listening and one of the boys was making hand signals to his dad that he was going to punch the boy.  I spoke to Tony about this and he said they are always like this, although it had been better the last few weeks.  He spoke to them, however throughout the rest of the game the little comments and cheek was exchanged between the two.  It was quite annoying that the parents were up in the cafe area watching and didn’t bother to come and intervene.  I don’t believe it is the role of the coaches to manage the children who basically want to fight.  I understand that there will be disagreements between kids but this is a long standing issue.  It’s a shame that the rest of the team had to suffer and wait around while we were continuously talking to the boys.

At the end of the session Tony thanked me for all my help and asked me if I would be interested in working with them next year.  I was really happy with this as it made me feel very appreciated.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at placement.  It has been a completely different setting from my usual work and I have learned a lot and developed a lot new skills and understanding for coaching.

Christina

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

I am starting to feel like my placement has become my job that I do on a Friday.  I like this as it means that I am settled and comfortable in this setting but it also makes me a little sad as I know that my placement is finishing soon.  I know that with these placements there are sometimes opportunities to carry on volunteering out with placement.  However as I am returning to my work next week after maternity Leave I will not have the capacity to continue this placement. Which is disappointing.
This weeks placement was good.  I was working one to one again with Josh.  Although he didn’t want to do any of the activities in class this week, he left his dad with relatively no dramas and even spoke to  two of the other coaches.  He has never done this before and when they have tried to talk to him he has shied away from them.  This week HE actively spoke to them.  So it appears that he is becoming more comfortable in the class environment.
The home school group and the school group were fun to work with.  I feel that I am able to relate well to the children and have built good relationships with them.  I am able to be instructive but also fun which they like as the seem to be able to connect to me and listen to what I ask.
last session of the day was Dodgeball.  This session Tony always leads and I am thankful as there are some particularly strong characters in this group.  A few of them really struggle with instruction and being told something that they don’t want to hear or agree with.  A lot of the time Tony has to explain the role of the umpire and the consequences of not listening to them and arguing back.  It is a shame that this happens quite regularly as it wastes a lot of time.  However when they do listen and work as a team there are some fantastic players!
I look forward to next weeks sessions.

Christina

Christina

Today’s placement sessions were a lot of fun.  The first session today I worked again one to one with 3 year old Josh.  This week his dad brought him along and again he was reluctant to leave him.  But I took his hand and we walked around the hall having a look at what was set up.  Josh was not very interested in doing the tasks set out and so him and I played with a balloon a ball.  I thought that considering this was only the second week Josh had actually been in a session without one of his parents that it was better for him to be there doing something even if it wasn’t anything that was remotely planned.  I did notice that when the other coaches talked to Josh is didn’t shy away as much as last week and even spoke to one of them which he hadn’t done before.  I believe that by giving him support and encouragement he is slowly becoming more comfortable in the session.  I hope that he will soon be able to participate in the games with the other boys and girls.
The next two sessions were a busy and there was quite a lot going on in them.  I feel very confident in working with these children now and am getting to know them better each week.  I enjoy working with the other coaches, I believe that I have built up good relationships with them in this short time.
The last session today was Dodgeball.  I basically observed this session and Tony was the lead.  Dodgeball is another sport I know very little about so it was interesting to watch.  Also frustrating at times as some of the players spent most of the session messing around, not paying attention or listening to instructions.   I have a certain admiration for people that coach children.  I am throughly enjoying my placement but I honestly do not think it is a job that I could do on a more permanent basis!  Maybe my thoughts on this will have changed by the end of the month!
I am looking forward to next week!

It has been a busy week for me at placement this week.
Thursday 24th I was at Dunblane Primary with Tony (my mentor) to deliver the cricket session.  It was a good session this week and the pupils were a bit more engaged.  We had additional support from two Dunblane high school pupils, which definitely helped to take the pressure off as it was a busy session.   I enjoyed working with the younger pupils in the groups on their bowling techniques and encouraging them to get runs in, in mini games.

Next was Dunblane High for the Floorball.  I was there for three seasons this week.  The S1’s, junior and senior club sessions.  They were all good sessions.  I was refereeing in the first and felt quite confident in my ability to do so.  The only disappointment for me today was that the senior club group didn’t turn up for their session and some of the S1’s had stayed on for this and had been talking about a particular player and his skills.  I felt disappointed for them and myself not having gotten the opportunity to train with them and learn from them as some of them have played at international level.

Friday 25th

I was at the Dunblane centre for 3 sessions. The first session was my crowning glory moment of my placement so far.  It was a preschool session.  1 of the boys Josh who comes, never wants to participate and always clings to who ever brings him along.  Today was no different and all the other coaches tried to get him to engage.  Tony asked me to try as they had, had no luck.  Josh was trying to cling on to mum and she said you might just have to hold him, while we leave (his nana was there also) I said is that ok and they said yes so I tried to distract him while then went out and after a second or two he was clinging on to me.  I chatted with him and tried to put him at ease.  I walked him  around the room so he could see what was there and I asked him what he thought we would be doing.  He was a bit reluctant but stayed with me.  Tony started the session and I worked one to one with Josh. If any of the other coaches came and talked to him he would turn and face the corner.  At first his didn’t want to do anything but I would start doing it and be very enthusiastic and excited and eventually he wanted to try.  He engaged in about half of the session and then he just wanted to run around and play with the ball having me chase him.   His mum and nana were so pleased at the end.  Tony as well thanked me and said that, that was the most he had ever done in a session.  I left really pleased that I had managed to get him involved.  His mum asked if I would be there next week and I said yes.  They were very happy and kept thanking me for helping Josh.

I think having kids myself and having one of my children in a similar situation when she started swimming lessons helped me to understand what Josh was going through.  I knew I needed to make him feel comfortable with me and I needed to make what I was doing look fun and exciting for him to want to try.  On reflecting on this session I then realised that I am the only female coach working with Tony at the moment.  I feel that this had a big impact on Josh as he relates better to women.  I hadn’t really noticed this before but it might be beneficial for Tony to have a mix of coaches  at sessions as some children relate better to one or the other.

The last two sessions I did were Halloween game themed and were a lot of fun to be involved in.  I look forward to next Friday.

Christina

Feeling so much better this week for placement thankfully.  I was helping out at the primary school cricket session again this week.  I found the session particularly challenging.  The pupils that attend this session seem to have a real lack of respect for the coach.  Always messing around and not listening or paying attention to instructions given by the coach.  I felt myself having to bite my tongue not to raise my voice to get them to actually sit and listen.  However I didn’t really feel it was my place to do so.  It was Tony’s session and I didn’t want to over step my mark as it were.  When  he finally managed to get them sorted into their groups to practice their catching skills I did raise my voice to the 3 groups I was working with as they were just launching the balls around the gym and throwing themselves on the mats.  It did appear to have an impact as they stopped messing about and actually started doing the task that they were meant to be doing.  Although not for very long before they started messing around again.  I could feel myself getting increasingly annoyed at certain pupils.  However I just took a deep breath and put this aside and encouraged them and gave advice to them when they were doing the different tasks.  I was actually quite thankful when the session ended.  As it was very manic.  It did think a couple of times,  “this is why I don’t teach children”.
The Floorball session up at the high school was far more relaxed.  There were fewer pupils there this week so they only had 2 teams and the played 15 minute halfs.  They pupils there are very focused and eager to play.  It was a good opportunity for me to watch them play as a team and individually. Tony also let me see the skill session plans that he intends to use after the holidays.  They look good and I hope to maybe get along to 1 of the sessions but I have had to miss a couple of weeks of my Sporting Excellence lectures in order to attend these sessions so I plan after the reading week to go back to the Fridays as I don’t want to miss anymore than I already have.

Christina

My second week of placement. On Thursday the sessions are different from the Friday and I wanted to see all aspects of Tony’s classes while on work experience.  Thursday first session was at Dunblane primary school and was a cricket session.  I felt a bit clueless for this session as I know very little about cricket.  The class was mixed age groups.  There was only 1 girl at the class although some students weren’t there this week due a school trip.  Tony told me the plan for the session and what I was going to help with and it seemed relatively straight forward.  He also told me that he had, had to have a meeting with the school the previous week due to the behaviour of some of the participants.  He hoped that with the support of the school and the parents their behaviour would improve.  During the session I was coaching a group of the children in throwing and catching.  Some of the boys started playing around and not listening and I had to try and explain to them the importance of practicing these skills with games coming up.  Tony later had to talk to them about behaviour and I found it frustrating that they didn’t listen.  I thought about this and remembered how I was at their age and then felt sorry for my teachers as I was much the same,  easily distracted, chatting when I should have been listening and playing around.  This made me smile but also fell sympathy for the coaches.

The second session was at Dunblane High School and was a floorball session for S1’s.  I was really excited about this session after my training at the weekend.  There was about 17 pupils in the session only 1 girl which I found a shame as it is a great sport.  Tony said that there had been 2 or 3 more last year but they hadn’t carried it on.  I now understood why the Great Britain female team manager was doing ladies come and try sessions around the UK to try and encourage more female players in the sport.
This session the pupils were split into 3 teams and they played games rotating the teams.  It was a good session just to be able to  watch the games and see how talented some of the pupils were.  This was a really fun session and I really enjoyed it.   I had planned to stay on for the Floorball club sessions at the high school but I was choked with the cold so decided to give it a miss this week.

On Friday I was due to go to the Dunblane Centre for the afternoon sessions but my cold had gotten worse and so I had to email Tony and tell him I wouldn’t be able to attend.  I had considered  going but I was sneezing and coughing a lot. I didn’t want to let Tony down or miss out on placement hours but I had to think about other factors such as  the chance of passing it on to the other coaches or the children and then, them not being able to attend.  I believe that this was the right thing to do and I feel better and ready for my placement this week. 

Our coach on Sunday

One of the sports that Tony coaches at Coach my Sport is Floorball.  Prior to starting my placement I had never heard of the sport and Tony showed me a promotional video of professional teams playing.  It is very big in Scandinavian countries apparently.  I am keen to learn more about it and asked if I could go along to the session on Thursday when he coaches it.  Last week I received and email from Tony to say that there was a Great Britain women’s floorball coach doing a ladies only come and try session in Perth and would I like to go.  I jumped at the chance.  On driving up to Perth for the session I was a bit worried and apprehensive as I literally knew nothing about the sport.  I googled it and listened to a quick run down of how to play and the rules.  Turns out it is like Unihockey.  Tony was there when I arrived as his daughter had been at the children’s morning session.  I was glad of this as I was nervous about the session.  He introduced me to the coach and then we had a get together with the other players.  There were quite a few ladies in the fifties there which I was quite surprised about as I had assumed that it would have been all younger people.  All the other players had previous experience other than myself but I just decided to try my best and enjoy the experience, as the purpose in going was to learn about the sport so as to be able to coach it, not to make the GB team.  The coach took it right back to basics, focusing on techniques and movement which was great for me being a complete novice.  She kept the session fun and engaging and the hours flew in.  Later in the day we had to play against each other and by this point we were all quite tired.  But I just tried to remember all we had learned and have fun with it. I had a great afternoon.  Learned so much and met a great bunch of ladies.  I was very glad to have gone along and now feel I have a better understanding of the game in order to help more effectively with the coaching sessions.  I am really looking forward to seeing the kids play this Thursday and am more confident in my abilities to assist them in the session now.

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

Friday 20th September
I arranged to meet Tony my mentor after the seminar at the Dunblane Centre. I was excited about this, a bit nervous and worried as I always seem to have a hundred things going through my head. What will my mentor be like? What am I going to be doing? Will he like me? Will the kids like me? What if they don’t? and the usual nerves of being a little bit out of my comfort zone. I know in myself that I get this way when starting something new. I teach a lot if exercise classes and still get these same sorts of feelings when taking on a new class or covering for another instructor. I believe it is natural to have these feelings. I have over the years learned to put my “game face” on in these situations. Where I might be quietly freaking out inside, on the outside I look calm and collected. Deep breaths are always a good way to achieve this.
When I met Tony, I was almost instantly put at ease. He was really friendly and easy to talk to. He told me a bit about himself and how he came to be running this business and I shared my working background with him. He showed me an app they have for learning the games which I thought was a great idea. It is a relatively new thing and they have it as 1 of his coaches is a visual learner so this makes things easier for him learning his sessions. He talked through the sessions he currently runs days and times and the sports they use and play. He talked about Floor ball which I had never heard of so he showed me a video of it and I said it was definitely something I would be interested in learning more about. I explained my home situation to Tony, and he was very understanding. Which again put my mind a bit more at ease. However, I felt that I didn’t want to let him down and not be committed as he had been kind enough to offer a place in the first place. We arranged that I would give him a least a weeks’ notice of what days and times I was able to come along, and I agreed to start the following Friday 27th September. I left feeling pleased with how the meeting had went and confident that this placement was going to be a good experience and a lot of fun.