Blog posts

Blog post 1

On placement I had already planned a session which I was going to teach to the students on balance. I then aligned the session in relation to the session plan. This involved getting them used to balancing in groups and pairs for the support, assistance and to increase confidence. I gradually to individual balances. As it was the first session I spoke to the coach and mentioned about doing gymnastics as the sessions which I was going to teach, the initial reaction was negative one as they didn’t seem excited about it. Due to this I started to question myself and my ability to produce an appropriate and challenging gymnastics session, which will change the students preconceived opinion on gymnastics. After thinking this it then led me to think about my coaching planning reflective framework (Muir et al;.2011) and especially coach behaviours and how I can address certain coach behaviours to ensure that the quality of the session is off a good standard. Also after getting the reaction like I did off the children I then thought about the player engagement levels and thought that I had to keep them high as they are only year 1 and they can easily lose focus and look elsewhere or mess around with the display boards. In the research of Ford et al. (2010) it suggests that the “more high structured practice would result in higher superior skill” I took this into consideration I based my sessions a little higher than their age group, this allowed the content to be a little more challenging and allowed more concentration making all students be engaged within the session. At the beginning I started with individual work so I could assess the ability of the students, they weren’t particular pleased about this, but they started to understand why I had asked this of them. This then progressed onto single legged balances, at first the students were nervous about not having the support from a peer or myself and by trying a new balance which was on one foot rather than anatomical position. Going back to the start of the session I was doubting my ability to undertake a higher level gymnastics session and looking at the end of the session I felt as though I shouldn’t have been worrying as much about the session as seeing the children learn and gain something from my session as well as enjoying themselves and working independently rather than in a group was an achievement which I am proud of.

Reference list:

-Ford, P.R,. Low, J., McRobert, A.P. and Williams, A.M., (2010). Developmental activities that contribute to high or low performance by elite cricket batters when recognizing type of delivery from bowlers’ advanced postural cues. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 32(5)

-Coaching Planning Reflective
Framework (Muir et al;.2011)

Blog Post 2

As a few weeks had progressed and after seeing a lot of improvement in balancing with no help I thought it was time to introduce objects that stood in the way of the finish line. After seeing the progression over the past 2 weeks the thought of adding objects in the way was a good idea as linking back to Ford et al. (2010) saying higher structured practice all lead to higher superior skill so I designed the sessions with them balancing across benches and beams with a mat at the end and mats either sides incase there is an accident. For myself as a coach I was not feeling confident when delivering this session as they are only yer 1 children and asking them to walk across objects would be challenging and scary as in the back of my ind was always thought of “what if it goes wrong and one of them falls”. Moving into the session I set out a bench and beams with mats either side and at the end and split the group into four groups. The session objectives (Muir et al;.2011) was for them to successfully walk across the beam or bench with support from and assistant and some of the children to be able to walk across the objects with no help rom any assistant. The objectives seemed to be to vague for the session but after seeing the session unfold they didn’t seem to be bad at all as they were achieved but only just. In the session I wanted the children to walk arms out wide one foot in front of the other across the beam or bench and then to carefully step off them once they got to the end. Once I could see they were getting the hang of this with assistance I then asked them to try it again with no help or assistance from anyone. This is where the thought of it all going wrong came racing back into my mind. To my surprise I was easily mistaken as this did not fear any of the children as they were keen and raring to give this a good go and a good go is what they gave it as they got across 8/10 with no help. At the end I then thought deep into my knowledge on how I could broaden this session and I thought of the self determination theory (Ryan, R.M. and Deci, 2000) and gave them the autonomy at the end of the bench to perform any sort of jump onto the mat. After introducing the jump as a coach I was then seeing all sorts of jumps like pencil jumps, star jumps etc and this made me feel very happy the session was a good session and my overall reaction was delight as the session went well and objectives were met and lastly no one was hurt which was a relief!

Reference list

– -Ford, P.R,. Low, J., McRobert, A.P. and Williams, A.M., (2010)

-Coaching Planning Reflective
Framework (Muir et al;.2011)

-Self Determination Theory (Ryan, R.M. and Deci, 2000)

Blog post 3

Throwing was the activity for the after school session which I held with both the year one and two’s. To me as a coach this session seemed to be very simple and very easy deliver so my initial thoughts on this session was positive. The first activity was just a simple one (as seen below) and all they had to was throw bean bags and Quoits into the hoop. This was a base game and was to get the children started in what was to come further in the session. After setting the children off in their task of throwing into the hoop I took a step back from the session to see the engagement levels and how the children were finding the session. From what I could see is that in the group there was mixed abilities and the more advanced children were finding it very easy and I could sense the boredom that they were getting. This is where the single and double loop learning (Argyris and Schan 1978) came into place and more so the double loop. The reason why I thought abut the double loop more was because in my mind I had the question of ‘is this the right thing to do?’. So as a coach witnessing this I then made the game more fun and put it into the theme of the ‘Olympics’. This then made the game more fun and exciting meaning they were encouraging one another to score as many points as I said the first team to sit down won a gold medal, second silver medal and third bronze medal. Once this was underway I then went to the children that were more advanced and told them they could only use their weaker hand to throw to make it more challenging for them. I did this without opening up to the group as I felt if I told them one to one then it will not make the less advanced children upset that they aren’t at their level yet.

Reference List;

Argyris and Schan 1978- single and double loop learning.

Blog post 4

In this session it was also linked to throwing and more advanced from the previous weeks in this after school activity. One of the models I have learnt from being at university is ‘ripples on a pond’ which has motivation, interest and enthusiasm as big components in ‘wanting. To do anything (Race,2014) and this is a model I had in mind when delivering this session as throwing can be seen as a boring thing to do and having no motivation interest or enthusiasm will show and make the session very boring and unenjoyable. On the other hand, the children have been given the autonomy to set their own targets which reverts back to the left determination theory (Ryan, R.M. and Deci,2000). For example, how many times they can knock a ball off the cones etc. When considering my options for this session I had to take in to account that there are some children in the group who’re more advanced than others. So, designing the session was based around this factor and how I could get everyone involved with everyone feeling comfortable in taking part. This session consisted of two teams behind a line facing one another and then cones in the middle with different types of balls on top and the aim was to throw underarm from behind your line with a bean bag, quoit or tennis ball to try and knock the balls in the middle off the cone.

Once I set the children off in their game I could see straight away that the more advanced children were taking control and not letting the less advanced have the chance to knock the balls off. After all the balls had been knocked off I reset the game back to the start and started again just to see if the more advanced would still take control and as predicted the same thing happened again. This then made me think hard as a coach as I needed to act quickly and think of an adaptation to make this game run smoothly and fairly. The adaptation that I came up with was to increase the base lines to four and to have four teams instead of two. This made the game more stretched and more even as the each team had at least one advanced pupil and not a team full of advanced children. This also had a negative side to it because there were four groups instead of two when taking a step back it then looked like organised mayhem as there were balls flying everywhere so the challenge was to restrain the amount of balls flying around but, also to make sure that they were having fun and not to stop the game every 30 seconds. So, the way this happened was for me as coach running around the outside gently rolling balls back to each team meaning that, every time they threw a ball there was always another one to turn around to and throw that.

Blog post 5

The final session of gymnastics was a combined session of rolls and balancing with benches and beams again. This session consisted of the pupils performing either forward rolls/teddy bear rolls and then straight up to walk arms out wide across the beam or bench. Then performing a pencil or star jump at the end of the bench. For me as a coach this was seen as a ‘test’ to the children to see if they have progressed from the first week of gymnastics. The way in which this was set up is I had mats and they were followed by benches or beams followed by mats. What I wanted from this session was to see the progress the children have made throughout the sessions that I have done with them and to see how comfortable they are moving forward in the sport. For me as a coach this was a positive session and ran exactly the way I wanted it even though I had to overcome certain barriers for that to happen. The barriers that I had to overcome were the children going off task. For example, running over to me asking questions about university, what sports do I play. I think this was because they knew it was the last session and also me knowing that it is a sport that isn’t enthusiastic and outgoing it is more of a relaxed sport that requires a lot of concentration. For or year 1 children that is a tough element at that age as they are giddy and only have 1 hour of PE a week. Some of them see this as an opportunity to have an extra playtime with their friends. As the session progressed through time I could see children who at the start of the term were shy and not confident to try certain types of movements and skills going all out to attempt everything. I think this was because I made into a little competition where I would score each group out of 10 and this added a little bit of competence (Ryan, R.M. and Deci, 2000).On the other hand, I did not want this to get to competitive as they were on beams and benches walking and I did not want them rushing I wanted the correct technique and I didn’t want any injuries to happen.

Summary Of the Year

Overall, the year at five lanes has been a great experience for me as a coach and it has helped me massively moving forward into the future when coaching. This has benefitted me because I have been delivering gymnastics which to me at the start was a challenge. It brought me totally out of my shell and the first time I got told about gymnastics I was left puzzled. I have never delivered a session in gymnastics and at school I always tried to avoid taking part myself. In the sessions over the months that there have been many challenges. To address the challenges I had to plan the sessions for future weeks with the use of the GROW framework. This helped me massively going forward and especially in gymnastics as this was something I had never done so doing this it was helpful. It also helped me planning the goals of the sessions. If any problems occurred how I was going to address these and prevent these in the future. If the problems did occur, did the way I address the problem work? and would my coaching change moving forward into future sessions. This framework tool was a big help for me as it made me think when designing sessions for the class as I changed the way I coached and how I came across to make it easier for the children. Also, easier for myself to understand and get my head around as well. It has been a massive learning curve and I feel like I have developed and progressed each week as a coach, even after having some set backs . Also, the after school sessions as well, they have developed me into a stronger coach. As I am teaching the pupils in their own time, me being strong as a coach worked and not being tedious, keeps the children wanting to attend. I have seen my confidence grow through my time there, in comparison to the start of the year to the end of the year, it was like having new person.

For me now moving forward it is all about finishing my degree at Leeds Beckett University and then my hope is to take a year out go to Australia and play cricket and enjoy that, create a new adventure and who knows I could stay out there with my own coaching business!