SPSU9W6 – Sports Work Experience (Spring 2020)

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity i was given to work with active Stirling and i have learned a lot that will aid me in pursuing my desired career path.

I was informed a couple of weeks ago by my mentor Craig that i would no longer be allowed to help at schools due to the coronavirus outbreak. This was extremely unfortunate as i was really enjoying my placement however i can understand due to circumstances that this was the best decision to make. Craig done a fantastic job in ensuring i got my 3o hours finished and for that i am extremely grateful.

After this i then began to do my presentation. At first i thought it would be fairly straight forward as it was no longer in front of a class, however in my first attempt at presenting it was only around 3 minutes so i knew i had to add a lot more to be able to meet the requirements. Recording over power point was strange, but the more i done it the easier it got. I eventually managed to get my presentation to  10 minutes and sent it in.

Overall, i had great fun participating in this module and feel i have learned invaluable lessons as well as enhancing the skills i already have. i believe these new skills will aid me greatly in getting the career i want.

Over the last couple of weeks, everyone knows the world has changed significantly, and the effect of the coronavirus on my placement has been huge.

Almost two weeks ago now, I was informed by my mentor Craig that schools in the Stirling area were no longer accepting external visitors. Due to the nature of my placement, this effectively completely cancelled all my further volunteering opportunities with Active Schools. I was disappointed this was the case because despite initially being extremely nervous before starting my placement, I felt as if I had really grown into the role and started to feel more and more confident delivering the sessions to the kids. I also felt that Craig was trusting me to come up with elements of the sessions myself which I was really pleased with.

Since the sessions have been cancelled my mentor Craig informed me that Romie was happy for him to sign off my placement opportunities which I was very grateful for. I felt like although the placement was cut short, I learnt a lot in that short period of time, and it was extremely valuable experience for my future career prospects.

After placement was cancelled my attention switched to preparing my presentation for the module. I had already started to create my PowerPoint before the news that we would not physically be presenting to the class. This didn’t create any issues however as the slide are merely a prompt and visual aid. I enjoyed the process of creating and then recording the PowerPoint, it was something a bit different and I preferred this method as opposed to presenting in front of an audience as I am usually overcome with nerves.

I have had to use voice recording a couple of previous modules, so I was used to recording audio and listening to the sound of my own voice which very few people like. I found this process relatively simple, despite having to rerecord sections over and over again if I wasn’t happy with them. In terms of the content, I was careful to ensure I covered all the aspects of the marking criteria and feel like I did this well throughout, giving detail about my placement opportunities, as well as reflecting on my personal development.

Hopefully everyone can keep safe in the next couple of months and this crisis can pass as quickly as possible.

These last few weeks have been worrying times for us all. Luckily for me I have completed my 30 hours therefore I didn’t have the worry of wondering how I would complete my work experience.  I was saddened though that my work experience ended so abrupt as I never got a proper last day at the school and was never able to thank all the staff in person for helping me over my time there.

I had my presentation slides completed leading up to the presentation getting called off. I was a little frustrated by this as I was wanting to challenge myself presenting in front of an audience. The recording of the slides I found slightly difficult as with everyone in my family being home there was a lot of background noise. After a few attempt’s I had the completed powerpoint and was happy with how it sounded.

I have contacted my mentor to fill in my final placement tracker but have yet to hear back from him. I understand this is a complicated time for school teachers and they have other things to worry about. I know he will get back to me in due course.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my work experience at the school and I have took away vital skills I can use in the future.

In the last couple of weeks things have got really hectic and it is an extremely confusing and scary time for us all. The university and the facilities have completely closed down. I have had to move home back to Northern Ireland to be with my family. This has taken a lot of time and effort to pack up all my stuff and be able to organise a way to get it all home.

This has ultimately caused some problems with my placement hours. I have done between 25-30 hours so I am hoping this will be sufficient to pass this part of the module. I had been lucky to get my placement started so early in order to complete this many hours up to this point before everything started escalating with the coronavirus.

Since getting home I have been able to complete my presentation and record the necessary audio included for it. I spent sufficient time to make sure I included all the information relevant and making sure that I could fit the timings in with the audio recording. This proved quite difficult and I was faced with a few problems to get it submitted. Upon recording the audio to go along with my slides, sections of the audio kept cutting out and this required me to re-record it. With my final recording I was still unsure if it worked completely. Then I had the problem with my internet becoming extremely slow, where my presentation uploaded one minute over the time. This was extremely frustrating however I did get it sorted.

Since submitting this presentation I have been becoming increasingly agitated and am finding it really difficult to motivate myself to proceed with my dissertation and my final essay report for this module. Being stuck at home I am finding it hard to sit and get anything productive completed, however I aim to try and make a plan for myself soon to set mini deadlines for myself.

As you know due to coronavirus the university has been closed. This has been a really strange time and it is important that we all try to be safe under these circumstances.

Luckily for myself though I had already completed my 30 hours of placement so didn’t have to worry about how COVID-19 would effect this, which I know some of the people in this module may have been stressing over. I completed my powerpoint presentation slides after our seminar on presentation skills so I had plenty of time to look over it to practice for our face to face presentations.

I am a key worker during this global pandemic therefore I am glad I was so organised as we could no longer do this face to face, so I set aside some time between work and trying to complete my dissertation and began practising my voice-overs for each slide.  I found this difficult to begin with as their was loads of background noise (Family & dog being home) but eventually managed to get a decent enough recording. I thought it was good that we could do it one slide at a time because I noticed with the longer slides I began to rush what I was saying or slip up somehow, so it was good when this happened that I didnt need to re-record the full slideshow.

I have recently contacted my placement mentor to fill in my final placement tracker to show I have completed the 30 hours to add to my appendices for our final essay, although haven’t had much luck yet – possibly because the schools are closed but I will continue to try.

Overall, I have really enjoyed this module and getting some real-life experience in what it is like to teach P.E in a high school as I’ve only ever taught primary school children. I have been able to enhance my skill set and have fun while doing so.

Since my last blog post the university has closed down for teaching and my placement has been canelled too. The 6-a-side league I was working on was organised by the Gannochy Sports Centre and once that closed on the 17th of March, the 6-a-side league was also cancelled for the season. Once I heard this news I thought this meant I would not be able to get anymore placement hours. I had only managed 20 out of the required 30 hours. I was not worried though because I knew that everyone else on this module would be in a very similar position.

Rommie sent out an emial asking students to contact their supervisors to see if there was anyway of getting more placement hours by working from home. After speaking to Amy, my supervisor, via email she was able to give me some extra tasks to complete. I have spent the past week distributing a survey about the 6-a-side league to the participants. Once this is closed (Sunday 29th March) I will review the data a create a PowerPoint presentation reviewing what the survey has found. I have also been tasked with creating a knockout scedule for this years competition. Although the leagues were cut short, the majority of the games had been played. The top eight teams from the three leagues combines will progress into the Champions League and those placed 8th-16th overall will go into the Stirling Cup. As all of the leagues were cut short and not all games were played, teams final positions were established using average points (total points divided by games played). I found this task quite simple and it was good to see which teams had qualified after spending so many weeks following their progress. Amy has said these games are going to hopefully take palce in Septemebr when students come back to university for the new academic year.

I was able to successully submit my presentation online. I had never recorded a presentation on PowerPoint before, however, the video Rommie provided for reference made it very easy to work. I found it difficault to listen to myself speak when after I had recorded my presentation, but this did also allow me to notice a lot of simple mistakes I make when presenting. Hopefully doing the presntation this way has benefited mt grade.

Alltogether, despite this week has been a hectic and uncertain week I am still feeling confident about my progress in this module.

The past couple of weeks has been stressful due to the COVID-19 outbreak, my placement was ended over 2 weeks ago due to it. I did not manage to complete all of my hours because of it, but my mentor has given me work which I could do at home for him to complete my 30 hours. I was really enjoying my time at placement, so feeling sad that it had to come to an end so quickly.

I enjoyed making the presentation for the end of my work placement and this allowed me to be able to properly reflect on my time working with coach my sport, and appreciate all of the opportunities that I was given. I liked making all of the slides up and being able to record it. It took me a good couple of practices before I was able to record my presentation. It took a number of tries to get it right due to everyone in my house being home, so it was hard to get through the recording without hearing them in the background. I also felt at the start that I was rushing through my slides, but being able to pause the recording after each slide made it easier to get through the information without rushing it too much. It also meant that when I made a mistake I didn’t have to record it again from the beginning.

I am glad that I chose to do this module as I think it has given me more skills which I will be able to use this year when I am able to look for jobs. I am glad that I got the experience of working with coach my sport and had the chance to work alongside the other coaches.

The past two weeks have been challegning for pretty obvious reasons. With the further spread of the virus causing uncertainty over university and life in general, there has been a huge amount of stress on myself, as im sure the same goes for many others.

With regards to my placement, I was under the hours that was needed to complete the module – as there was a few big events due to take place that had been cancelled. Along side this my placements in the school weer swiftly cancelled so this left me finished. I spoke to my mentor several times to make sure everything was tied up and that there was nothing else that could be done, and I must credit Craig for being so prompt and helpful during this stressful time.

Romie had been excellent in responding to my queries and issues regarding placement, and just my studies in general so this has made this terrible time, a little easier bit by bit.

When completing my presentation i was faced with the issue that i could not record over my powerpoint so this was just an extra layer of stress that really I could have done without.  However after consulting with Romie we came up with a solution that enabled me to get it done, and submitted. PHEW. I simply recorded with my phone and submitted it alongside the presentation slides. Again, PHEW.

I have still been working in a Supermarket during this time which really isnt ideal, could be doing without it as Ive still a fair bit of work to do, along side other life problems but I guess in times like thee youve just got to plough on!!

Hope everyone is safe and well.

Elliott

I had planned to assist with the drugs and alcohol recovery classes at my placement, this was cancelled due to COVID-19.

The rest of my work consisted of finalising and delivering my presentation online.

In preparation for my presentation, I always had it in mind when being at placement and when writing my blog posts. I ensured I posted about key things to help me refer to experiences and really reflect on the experience. When putting my presentation together I just took each section as it came and did my script first then put key points on screen. Some slides I used visual aids and some had more texts than others. I wanted to make my slides look professional in case my mentor ever wanted to see them or I came back to the presentation for any reason in the future as I now work for Active Stirling. When recording my presentation, it was weird doing into my laptop I was worried I’d sound monotone as I had no one else in the room. I decided to make use of que cards instead of memorising or reading script. This partially helped with the flow as it was similar to real life presentations. The recording was frustrating as you had to stop and start each slide which took you off your line of thought and natural flow. Once I listened back to it though I was happy with it and submitted the presentation.

I have had to contact my mentor as I couldn’t finish my last hours of placement. I have asked to continue my volunteering after the module anyway but have asked what I can do for now to get a good grade in the module. I hope to hear from her soon.

The next step in achieving my good grade is  my final report due mid April, I am going to start planning this next week and hope to do it alongside my dissertation as the deadlines are days apart.

These past couple of weeks have been very difficult in terms of trying to complete university work and to try and stay engaged with what is left to do. We had to complete the presentations this week and submit them electronically rather than present. I found this very difficult as I had prepared some visual aids which I then had to take out and add in extra parts to the presentation. Tony was very helpful during this time as he allowed me to use photos from the website and Instagram pages, which provided me with some talking points during my presentation.

Romie was also very helpful as prior to the university closing I was in self-isolation and Romie ensured me it could still be completed on time and gave me options which eased my anxiety.

With everything going on surrounding Covid-19 it’s a very anxious time, this is no different for the students who now have to complete coursework with only half of the content being taught face-to-face and the others over video calls which have had some issues.

When completing my presentation, I found it to run quite smoothly, and I was glad I had my previous blog posts as it helped me to remember what I had completed over the last 5 weeks. Recording it was quite difficult as I have an extremely busy household and so found it difficult to have no noise in the background while recording. Watching my presentation back I thought it went well and I enjoyed writing about my experience and thoughts and feelings about what happened during my placement. I am very disappointed that I will be unable to complete my remaining hours with coach my sport as I had such a brilliant experience with them. I am very thankful for the hours I got to complete and the many skills that I gained from working alongside some great coaches and I hope I can take these skills with me into my working life in the near future.