Leadership Academy

When we got to the leisure village, we were split down into the three different partnerships and given our free t-shirts with Leadership Academy on the back. Ours were red for the Cannock and Rugeley Partnership. We then went and watched a five minute video about being a sports coach and volunteering, this was really inspiring. We were told that the day ahead of us would make us an assistant coach and provide us with useful information for coaching.

Once the talk was over, we were told to meet in the hall for team building activities. We were split into groups and had to design an assault course testing either agility, ball skills, accuracy and targets or co-ordination. Our group was given the task of designing an assault course testing our peers on their levels of agility.

Our course consisted of, speed bounce, throwing an agility ball and running in and out of hoops, which shows agility because your changing direction very quickly. After 20 minutes of creating our activity we were then given the chance to complete the activities that other groups had created.

We then got the opportunity to gain a coaching qualification in one of the sports provided. The sport I chose was netball. First, we looked at how we would plan and deliver a safe session, making it fun and interesting for children.  We then looked at umpiring, the team leader picked four people, these were the players and the rest of the group had to umpire a mini style game. We had to blow the whistle to start the game, run up the court while staying in line with the ball, round the back of the net for shooting and blow the whistle if we saw a foot foul. This gave me a great insight into what is was like to Umpire a game of netball.

Towards the end of the session we designed a full lesson plan, including warm up, skills section, main content and cool down and then explained our session to the whole group. We looked at different types of drills we could us when coaching children and I learnt drills such as relays and small competitions always manage to keep children interested.

We then received our certificates and told how well we had all done and that we should have been proud of ourselves and continue coaching because we all had the ability to become great coaches.

What did I learn from this day?

From today I have learnt all about planning a good lesson, looking at the key points in the lessons, such as safety. I think this day was very useful as it had definitely improved my confidence when coaching younger children. It has also increased my knowledge about netball, which will help me in the future. It was also great to meet with students from different schools and partnerships.

If you have read this case study and would like some further information about the Leadership Academy then contact Richard Rollason on his email at richardrollasonpm@hotmail.co.uk