During my first day of my work experience placement shadowing Active Schools Coordinator, Fraser, I had the opportunity to be involved in different aspects of sports development. I found each situation I worked in allowed me to interact with a new group of people, offered new challenges and a chance to develop my knowledge, something I thoroughly enjoyed.

If I had to select my highlight from my first day it would be typing the minutes for the Leadership meeting with Active Schools Coordinators and Physical Education and Physical Activity in School Sport (PEPASS) representatives. I was very surprised yet excited about this opportunity as this was the first meeting I had attended and was not expecting to be given such a significant role. Through this opportunity I learned that my listening skills were required and that I must have the confidence to be able to speak up – where appropriate – to clarify points. I found this quite challenging as I usually take the lead in topically discussions and I had lots of thoughts and perspectives that I was eager to share. My critical thinking was also put into use as I needed to be able to analyse the information and determine the necessary points to be recorded. This is a skill I need to continue to work on as there was a lot of discussion surrounding a variety of themes. This experience showed me the organisation and reflection that goes into meetings within Active Schools.

In the afternoon, I was coaching a P7 mixed gender basketball team in the East End of Glasgow. I felt very prepared and comfortable about this session as I have been a multi-sport coach for the preceding 6 years. However, I soon observed that the team seemed to become very frustrated with each other whenever a mistake was made by a player. I was surprised when this was reoccurring as the team have been together for a year now. This experience taught me that although my role of the coach is to improve the players basketball skills and knowledge, I also have the chance to influence the young people’s attitudes, outlook on life and how to treat each other with respect which I feel very grateful to have the opportunity to do. What I will do differently in my next session is use appropriate interaction strategies to support communication among the team. For example, I will implement some team building exercises as well as implementing a team ‘cheer’ to build team chemistry and moral. I have learned that young people are still learning about social interaction and standards, however, they are more adaptable than adults as they are still discovering who they are and their perspectives.

Next week I will take forward my reflections from my first day at my placement and use them to learn and develop. I look forward to learning more about the sports development industry, pushing myself out my comfort zone and taking on new challenges and opportunities.

After my initial contact with my mentor at Wallace High school I was a bit overwhelmed about the task that I was given. My placement project is to put together a list of fixtures or arrange tournaments for different schools of sport at Wallace. I was worried about how I would gain contacts or how I would be able to arrange the right things for the kids involved. However, after meeting my mentor and coming up with some clear goals, both short and long term, I feel much more confident about the challenge that lies ahead.

I began my placement on Monday morning and during my morning in the school I got to speak to children ageing from S1-3 that were members of the swimming and football schools of sport. After speaking with many kids my challenge became much clearer as I gained a clearer picture of what it is they want. To begin with I was a little overwhelmed speaking to large groups of high school kids but as the morning went on I became more comfortable. It was great to meet the children and other staff members at the high school, they all made me feel really welcome and I can wait to get more involved in my project.

Going forward I have been co-ordinating with my mentor and she is going to forward me a list of contacts that I need to arrange fixtures and potential competitions for the swimming and football groups. I know exactly what the children want and I feel much more confident now that I am going to be able to deliver for them. My mentor has been great and I really enjoy working with her.

Looking forward to week 2 at Wallace High School.

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

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.

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.

Thank you for your patience. As Steve has kindly emailed you, a Blog for Sports Work Experience is now live. You are required to write a blog post on a weekly basis and comment on others’ posts (a minimum of one blog post and two comments on others’ per week) on Canvas. This will assist you in developing your reflective writing skills and completing your final report. Each post is basically about what you have done this week, what went well/bad, what skills/knowledge you have learned, what you would like to do next week, how you have developed a relationship with your colleagues and mentors, etc (approx 300-400 words). You are welcome to use some pictures relevant to what you write.

I would like you to start writing your post from Monday 30th September. I will check the first post that each of you uploads on Monday 7th October. So please make sure you upload your first post and make a comment on others’ posts by the end of next week, Sunday 6th October.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I look forward to reading your posts!