Monday- After already completing a full week of placement I was feeling more confident in my delivery and I felt more than capable to deliver sessions to a variety of age groups. I knew this week was going to be similar to the last as it was still half term soccer roadshows. Monday morning, I spoke to Stew and asked if I could have some more responsibility as I wanted to get the most out of my placement opportunity. He was more than happy for me to step up and deliver more sessions. He asked my preference of age group and I told him I was more than happy with any age. We walked up to goals to deliver the morning session and I was put in the youngest age group which ranged from 4-5-year olds. My session in the morning was all about fun and I wanted to ensure the children all had a ball and got plenty of ball time and enjoyed themselves and felt comfortable on the ball to bolster their technical skills. For the game I played traffic lights which meant I had 3 coloured cones (Green-go, Orange-walk, Red-stop). I started by calling the colour too, so they didn’t have to look for me but once they got used to that I didn’t call the colour and they had to be looking up while dribbling around which worked to help their vision and special awareness. During the afternoon again we played lots of football matches which was good for the children as they really enjoyed the competitive action. At the end of the day I was once again feeling really happy and positive.

Tuesday- Tuesday was another day and another soccer roadshow so it was nothing that I wasn’t used to. The morning was the same as usual but this time I was with the older group with a lead coach I had never seen before. He didn’t know what I was capable of and didn’t want me to lead sessions on my own so for the whole day I was stood back watching similar to what I did on the first session. I was quite annoyed by this as I wanted to keep coaching and keep improving. However, it gives me a chance to see how he coached and how he controlled the session which was good for me to see. It was a good day all in all, I just wish I had the opportunity to do much more coaching.

Wednesday- On this day I was back with the youngest group for a multi-sports day. The timings of the day remained the same but instead of just football we were told to deliver some multi sports sessions. My role in the morning was to deliver a warm up. The warm up I planned involved lots of SAQ (Speed, Agility, Quickness). This involved lots of sections on the pitch full of objects and different obstacles. For example, I used ladders, hula hoops, hurdles and cones. The children had free rain and every so often I would stop them and ask a child to choose another movement (such as side steps, jumping etc). This was the same warm up as last week as it was a different group of kids so it wouldn’t have been the same for them as the week before. The afternoon was still match based, but we did lots of different sports such as dodgeball, handball, football and football rounders. During the afternoon I was in charge of officiating and as we had younger children there were A LOT of toilet breaks which I had to escort the children to and from.

Thursday & Friday- Thursday and Friday were the exact same as last week and was basically identical days. The morning of both days consisted of shooting drills to test their shooting ability and give chance for the goalkeepers in our group to have a chance at saving some shots and improving with some guidance from us coaches. The afternoons were tournament based and we kept the same teams for the two afternoons but introduced transfers. This is where the children can choose to change teams or try and sign other players from other teams. This is good for giving them a break from continuously playing and gives a more competitive edge for them to enjoy. I really enjoy these days as I love to coach shooting drills as I find it extremely satisfying watching some of these young players striking a ball at a very high level and some of the keepers are so good which is fantastic to see. This was the end of my second week of placement, and I was up to 80 hours at this point, so I only had 2 and a half days to go.