I really enjoyed my placement this week. The PE teaching block had changed, meaning all classes were starting new activities.
St Maurice’s are a school of sport and have specific classes for different sports. I was given the opportunity to help in the school of aesthetics class. In this class, the pupils take part in general PE, as well as specialising in dance, gymnastics, trampolining and other movement-based activities. I was asked if I would take the pupils for a cheerleading class, and I jumped at this opportunity. I am a qualified cheerleading coach, so was really excited about being able to share my knowledge in this class. Many of the pupils had never done cheer before, so we started off doing a little introduction. I also taught them a short routine and we practiced some stunts. I think I did well when teaching them considering we had to go back to basics, as well as being my first-time teaching cheer to a school class. I also liked the fact I was put on the spot to take this lesson; I believe it gave me a good challenge. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and I am looking forward to continuing with cheer next week and seeing how the pupils progress.
The next class I was in were starting an invasion games block. This class consisted of learning to create space within a game. By the end of the lesson, the pupils were able to play a mini ball game, allowing them to work on their movement and spatial awareness, as well as passing and defending. The hall was split into two and I was refereeing one side of the hall. This allowed me to interact with pupils a lot more than I have the past few times on placement. I felt more open and comfortable encouraging them and helping them out as it was a smaller group of people. I was also able to talk to the pupils to find out what they had learned from their lesson.
Next week I plan on gathering information to allow me to start my project. I have chosen to investigate what activities pupils like to do in PE. I will make a questionnaire and I plan to gather information from some 1st, 2ndand 3rd year classes. This will help the PE department effectively plan for the next teaching block.
Sounds as if you are really enjoying your placement so far, always found it was a better system for coaching when schools ran classes that allowed both sport specific coaching and allowed pupils to use creativity for example invasion games. Keep up the good work! – Lewis
Glad your enjoying it! Its great that your able to use your skills you gained from being a qualified cheerleading coach into a different setting!
I am glad that you are proactively using your cheerleading knowledge and skills and using this to introduce something new and exciting into the PE lessons. It sounds like you are really enjoying your placement.
Your placement sounds very good, its good that you got the chance to introduce something that the pupils had not done before! – Ellis
Good to hear that you are enjoying your placement and using all your previous cheerleading coaching experience during the lessons.