At the event last week I spoke with Craig and we discussed some opportunities that I would be interested. I showed my interest in dance and gymnastics coaching  and he said he would try and arrange some sessions for me to lead. Following on from our discussion Craig has contacted me regarding dance sessions for two schools over a six week period. The first school is Riverside Primary School and will take place on Wednesdays in the school and the second is Fallin Primary School which will take place on Fridays in The Alpha Centre.

Both groups of children will be aged primary 5-7. I am really looking forward to delivering these sessions as I believe it is something I am confident with and will be really good at. I am so grateful to be given the opportunity to do something that I love. I do have slightly anxious feelings towards the thoughts of will the classes be busy? will they like the way I structure the classes? will they have fun? I am going to try and not let these thoughts consume me too much and try and stay positive.

In addition to these sessions Craig has also gave us a few upcoming event opportunities. There are two events coming up in November working with Sport Disability Scotland. I am now feeling less stressed about the fact that I won’t be able to get my hours completed thanks to the opportunities Craig has offered me. I was really worried that I was running out of time due to my PVG taking a few weeks to come but now that I have my PVG and my sessions and events have been organised I feel very relieved. I am now in a position where I feel I can now relax and enjoy the experience.

Due to unfortunate illness, it has been very difficult for me to make the travel to Stirling from Glasgow in order to meet with my mentor more than once. However, things are looking up for this coming week as a meeting has been set up for this Tuesday to finally sort out my PVG and the rest of the paperwork. I have also been notified that if everything goes to plan, I should be starting a full day placement in a school beginning Thursday the 7th.

I have also been told that shadowing the Exercise Referral group at the Peak should hopefully be good to go within the next few weeks which I am especially excited about. Not only will it help boost my hours that are required, it will also give me my well-needed experience for next year.

It has been a very long and tiring process and the timing of my illness has definitely not helped either. It’s looking like there are many other opportunities such as events coming up that my mentor is also keen to get me involved in. However, I’m hoping that I can get started next week as planned in the school and as soon as possible with the referrals.

My PVG finally came back so I was able to volunteer at the Parasport Festival at The Peak. The event was for children and teenagers from primary one to sixth year that had disabilities and gave them the opportunity to get involved in some sports. The sports included badminton, boccia, athletics, football, curling and swimming.

I was placed with the red team and we went to badminton first. At badminton I played with a girl called Lexi and we done some fun badminton drills with balloons and soft balls, from this she then built confidence to use a shuttle cock and her shots started to really improve, she was so proud of herself.

We then moved around as a group and participated in the different sports that were on offer. Every sport had alternative methods for each disability. For example, in athletics for the long jump for those who were in a wheelchair instead of jumping would see how far their wheelchair could go in one big push. My favourite sport was the curling, despite the fact it was absolutely freezing we got to join in with the kids and play games. It was fun to be on the ice and the kids really enjoyed it.

At the end of the day for the last 20 minutes there was a Q & A with two parasport athletes. The athletes shared their experiences and discussed some of their achievements which included Olympic medals. A part of their talk which really struck me was that they shared that they never had any opportunities to participate in sport when growing up and both were unable to participate in PE in school. I found it very enlightening when reflecting on the day and seeing how many opportunities there are for children and young people with disabilities compared to 20/30 years ago.

Overall the day was a great experience and I walked away feeling very educated and enlightened on disability sports.

 

The money for my PVG came out this week, which is a positive.  I’m unsure if that means everything is complete but I will mention it to Craig and see what he says.

The weeks are running out, so I’ll need to get everything going quickly once I am able to start.  Unfortunately I missed an opportunity to gain some hours last week, with help needed at an event at the Peak.  This was due to footballing commitment.  I notified Craig of this, and expressed my apologies for not being able to help.  I also asked that he lets me know of all upcoming events that may be similar and will contribute to my required hours.

I’ve also enquired about meeting in regards to my review, although I haven’t actually done anything in terms of work yet.  It might act as a possibility to discuss further the work I will be doing once everything is up and running. I am still, as I mentioned previously, extremely excited to get going and begin working with different groups of people, and across a number of events.

Again, hoping to have more to write about in the coming weeks.  Appreciate the patience.

Tom

Well unfortunately for me I have still not received my PVG, it is starting to get me a bit down as it seems everybody else has started there placement and I have not.  There is not much I can do but wait for know. I will see if it comes in post tomorrow (hopefully), but if not I will contact my mentor see if she has heard anything from disclosure Scotland and might also contact them myself, as it seem a bit long to be waiting for it.  Although when I did have meeting with my mentor Shona a couple weeks back she did say that the PVG’s have been taking a bit longer than normal.

I know I should not let it get to me as these things do take time and it’s must have. I just really want to get started as reading other’s blogs has got me excited about starting, curious of what I’ll be doing, what will I learn from it and what will I take it from it.

Once the PVG does comes through I know I will be glad but also keen to get started as soon as I can and obviously due to my placement with Active Schools, I will have the opportunity to get all hours completed and can continue with it once placement is over. I guess it’s just annoying waiting to get started, but sometimes you have too in life. I am sure it will be worth it though in the long run.

 

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.

luckily remembered to do this on my way back from terminal V.  Unfortunately there is not much to update on other than my mentor replied. Her reply was very brief  however she did say that she will get back to me with some sort of plan of how my placement is going to go. As aforementioned I feel slightly stressed as I want to do well in the presentation but may not have done a lot of placement between now and then. However I still feel optimistic and still plan to do as well as I can given the circumstances.

My fourth week of work experience seen me work as a mentor for Smithycroft Secondary’s Sports Leaders. Firstly, I ran a ‘Good Coaching Practise’ Workshop for the Sports Leaders and then I mentored them at the local Primary Schools. After winning Sports Leader of the Year in 2015 as well as previously attending Smithycroft as a pupil, the role of a mentor gave me the opportunity to share my coaching experience and teach the leaders about good coaching practise. I was very excited about this opportunity and I couldn’t wait to get started.

The Sports Leaders are doing a 4-week block of Tennis coaching in the learning community which will then lead to a Tennis Festival at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow. I feel this is a great opportunity for the leaders to make a change in their community as well as getting to experience a first-class sporting arena.

This was the first time the leaders had coached young people before, so I knew I would need to step in and support them during the session. I was more than happy to do this, however, I found it difficult not to step in too much and I realised it was important to let the leaders learn from their mistakes. At the end of the session I had a feedback session with the leaders discussing what they did well and what they could improve upon. I feel this was very invaluable for both myself and for the leaders because it allowed for reflection and evaluation to take place in order for any adaptions to be made for the future.

This experience made me reflect on my journey as a coach and how far I have come. Starting as a sports leader to now qualified in a variety of sports, coaching abroad and working for a variety sports organisation, it has shown me that I have worked hard, took opportunities and pushed myself out my comfort zone.

-Stephanie.