Employability

CPD:

On the course as a class we were introduced to Rugby League. On this coaching course we covered the basics of Rugby league by Andrea who’s part of the coaching team, she covered scenarios within her coaching career that she faced whilst coaching rugby and let us answer how we would respond to the problem.

I found this beneficial to me as my knowledge isn’t too strong in Rugby League, just the basics, however taking part on this course can help expand my knowledge if I ever do a Rugby session later on or hopefully for a school.

YST Cousre:

Another course which I found useful and something that helps my knowledge of teaching was the YST course.

In the course we covered the STEP principle and how each of these adaptations make sessions more inclusive, which is what we want every session to be achieved.

Mentoring:

Throughout the year I have provided some form of support with Level 4 students. The level 4’s had their festivals like we did last year, and during/after their festival session we provided them with feedback through observing the session and looking at the session plan. This felt very useful as both us and the level 4’s came out with some form of new knowledge, personally through giving feedback and asking questions we understood what the teachers think when looking at any of our sessions. Noticing the distance I have come from level 4 to now shows that we’ve taken on board information along the way and applied it in a better way than I previously did.

Other than mentoring Level 4 Leeds Beckett Students, we have recently been mentoring Durban University Level 4 students via Skype and Email. This contributed to our development as having other countries do the same course could represent completely different practice structures and even different sports/ games.

So far we have only contacted them once so far getting to know them and introducing ourselves, however we did get the opportunity to ask them about what they were going to do for their festival and get an understanding before looking at the session plan and watching the sessions as well. Whilst on the call they did ask us for some input regarding one way to adapt an activity that they had, which we helped them with and provided ideas that would also contribute to achieving their Learning Outcomes as we know their teacher would be observing for these key aspects which we told them about.

Community Engagement:

When recently starting placement, we went in before our allocated day to introduce ourselves and tell the school what was going to happen for our placement. This day we were told about the school cross country that was going to happen in the park across the road and we were asked if we would like to come along and take part/ help out. We agreed and went along were us three coaches were given the instruction to stand at a certain section to direct the pupils, in some cases we could run with a pupil struggling as a form of encouragement along the way. The year 6’s were helping out as well, this provided an opportunity to know our placement age group as well. Coming out of this experience the fellow teachers thanked us for helping out and collecting equipment but it also made us as coaches self well-being as we had fun helping out and the year 6’s already got a first impression of us even before we had our lessons, and would definitely do it again.

Another thing I attended was the presentations that the Level 6’s did on one of their research areas, one I remember most was on ‘How growth and maturation affects participants in sport’. In this the Level 6’s led the presentation stating what they had looked into and the knowledge that they had found and provided it for us. I chose this area as an idea of what I would want to do in their position next year, this was very useful to me as it was something I could take into my practicals as it aligned with designing suitable practise structures for developmental stage.

Online Workshop:

Another thing that I have got out of this course and module is the support from careers. One thing that contributes to helping me become more employable was the online workshop resources provided to us. The workshop I decided to watch was ‘the 5 mistakes people do on their CV’. I decided to watch this as I felt the others were qualities to have later on in a working career, whilst this was the most relevant to me right now as it is something I may need to start getting used to doing to help me when applying for a job.

From this workshop the knowledge I gained from this was how to structure a good CV and what relevant information I need to include to make me as an individual stick out and promote myself better than the common mistakes that people make when making a CV.