St Marys
Again the weather was predicted for heavy rain for the whole week which in turn makes my session at St Marys that little bit harder because the session will have to take place inside. I feel like I am at the stage with both schools now where we have built a good rapport and feel like they see me more as a friend than a coach which was what I wanted in terms of creating a less serious environment because I know it has an impact of how well they perform.
Year 3
Today’s session (see below) was looking at various jumping techniques and the fact that I was in the hall did not really matter because the session plan allows for the session to take place in a smaller space. We covered the basics of jumping and the nice aspect of the year 3 class was that they were all on the same page in terms of their ability. I implemented a fun warm up that involved jumping which included me as a race car driver and the rest of the class had to look at what cone I put in the air and respond to that instruction. This is just a fun way of making a drill enjoyable but also including the teaching points you want to cover. The rest of the session was just focused around getting the technique right of a two footed jump and then we got into teams and we incorporated relay races in the style of jumping and I had the class pretend they were frogs and they had to jump like a frog to a pit that was filled with flies (bean bags and balls) collect one a bring one back. I have noticed they the class really respond in team environments, so at every opportunity doing things like relay races in teams is always beneficial.
Year 4
The year 4 class was more of the same. I added my own little twist to jumping to give them a challenge by putting them into 3s and gave them 3 spot markers and we played a game of frogs on lillypads , there job was simple:
- One had to stay on a spot marker at all times
- Other 2 team mates had to throw the spot markers in-front of the person on the other spot marker whose job then was to jump onto the spot marker in front
- If you did not land on the marker then you had to start again
I believe apart of my coaching philosophy relied heavy on me altering a session to make it fun but also containing the teaching points I want to get across.
Treverbyn (Friday)
Year 5
The weather did not effect my time at Treverbyn as we were in the sports hall. Referring back to the point I made last week about some of the students in each class struggling to gain an understanding on how a skill is performed; I fortunately had access to another coach on placement who was from a local 6th form. Having Jack (anon) with me at the school allowed me to divide the class up into those who had struggled in previous weeks and those who were doing everything I asked from them. Jack took the group who were struggling and I gave him an itinerary of simple drills that could be done with a tennis ball and a balloon to focus on the fundamentals of badminton.
Year 6
Having the whole class back this week allowed the ones that needed to catch up to go with Jack and recap what I delivered last week. These football boys have showed badminton promise in the first few sessions so I was not worried about them not being able to perform what was asked of them. The other half of the class I had were put into pairs and we did games based on footwork and eventually used that footwork to be able to retrieve as many shuttles as they could from their partner who was throwing it over the net. We added progression into the session by doing things like facing the other way and standing further back as a way of testing the group.
After-School Club Year 3-6
Today I had access to the zorbs, which are inflatable bubbles which children put half their body through and can take part in multiple activities with. Once we pumped them up I split the group into 4 groups of 6 because i had 24 for the after school club and I wanted to make sure everyone had a fair go. Firstly I let them get a feel for the zorbs and you could tell how much fun they were having because they were all laughing and bumping into one another. Then we played a game of king of the ring where they had to bump into each other to knock everyone out of the circle I coned out to become the winner; once there was a winner we would swap over groups, it also gets extremely hot inside the zorbs so it is good to constantly cycling between groups.
From this week on placement I have learnt quite a lot about my coaching philosophy, I have realised that sessions work better with full engagement from everyone when there is a competitive element to the session at varying degrees. What I am wary of though going into December is will I still have their full attention with the excitement of Christmas being so obvious. Next week I am just going to make sure I recap what I expect to happen from the sessions and what i expect their behaviour to be.
Session Plans