Monthly Archives: February 2019

Today saw the first session back after a break from half term, which also meant it would be our first week taking payments. Thankfully, Chris was available this week to support with this whilst myself and Gavin led on the two sessions.

From the database we had I formulated two registers, one for the older and younger groups, for Chris to use. Accepting payments whilst the session was ongoing seemed to work quite well, even though doing it one-by-one each week may end up becoming rather fiddly. A first year student called Sam was also able to help with the first hour. The more people available to deal with the little ones, the better!

This week marked our last session before half term break, which would give us the opportunity to reflect on the programme so far. Thankfully, Gavin was available for the first session as well this week meaning we had the right number of coaches for both hours.

The session ran well, this week focusing mostly on match based activities as something more relaxed due to it being the final week of the term. It was agreed that in future, Steve Gocher, an U11’s coach at Marjons, would lead with the younger group when he was available to do so. This would be a great fit due to his enthusiasm working with the little ones.

This week saw the first of our early slot with the Marjoneers, available to children in Year 1 and younger. Previously I had received lots of requests asking if parents could bring parents from Foundation age, which we were unable to accommodate. However, with the new slot we opened it up to children in this age group.

I was able to lead on this age group due to Gavin not being able to arrive on time, but quickly realised how much more of a challenge it would be. It has been some time since I worked with children of that age and it is easy to forget how challenging it can be! It is vitally important that fun and enjoyment is one of the primary focuses, else the chance of real engagement is minimal.

As well as this, I spent a number of hours putting consent form details into our new database. As a result of doing this, I was able to send out emails to parents to keep them updated on the situation and what was happening. This meant that in future, session cancellations would be much easier to manage.