Reflective Diary Posts

1st Diary Post – 20/02/2020 – Netball Session

During our Netball practical on placement we had a new student join us, as we already knew that there would be a different level of ability in the class we were positive that it would be no problem having a new class member. However as we were aware of some disabilities and concerns in the class, we weren’t aware that for our next few practicals that we would have to take extra precautions. The new participant was very fragile and if was hit with an heavy object such as a netball, would have to be rushed to hospital immediately. Upon his arrival to the session we partnered him up with another participant who they got along with and allowed them to work together, using the STEP principle (Black 2011) we made sure that the equipment was safe enough to perform with and the task was made easier in the session, in order for the participant to feel included and engaged. To start off with the session was running smoothly and everyone was engaged and working hard in the session. Unfortunately, due to the timing of the schools break times we had to move to a smaller outside playground to perform the rest of the session, which could be adapted easily, however, due to the decrease in space it meant that this particular participant was at more of risk of getting injured, as we had already made the modification of partnering off this participant with another player into a safe space, we knew that we now had to try another approach to minimise this risk. In doing this we then decided to individualise this participant and have one coach with the rest of the group and the other coach working with the player in another area, using the same skills but differentiated to make it easier for them.

References:

• Black, K & Stevenson, P (2011) ‘The inclusion spectrum’ sports development

2nd Diary Post – 21/11/2019 – Rugby Session

In our 6 weeks of rugby practice we had one session which did not go as planned, this was due to two of the coaches being off sick. As this was the case this meant that it was one coach with 3 classes of 36 participants, as it was the 4 week of practice in this sport it was very challenging for myself to coach, demonstrate and observe every athletes performance in the session. To start off with I decided to split the class up into groups on which I was then able to observe each group separately. To start with this worked and the majority of the class was engaged and getting on with the task set, it was difficult to try and give feedback to each group as once I had moved from one group to another they started to mess around and lose control of the ball. Part way through the session one of the skills consisted of pair work and due to the lack of coaches it meant that I couldn’t get round all the participants and noticed that the majority of the class was starting to become disengaged. I decided that I would need to bring the class teacher to help me coach and keep the class under control, this then slowly meant that the session was getting back on track and that the participants were focused on the task and were progressing slowly in the skills. As the session hadn’t gone exactly to plan, I made the session more attractive (Baume 2009) in doing this I decided to put the practices we had covered into a mini game, with this I split the class in half and had a mini game of tag rugby, putting in constraints related into the game making the participants want to achieve.

References:

• Baume, D (2009) Writing and using good learning outcomes

3rd Diary Post – 28/11/2019 – Rugby Session

In the 3rd week of our practicals in rugby, we introduced the participants to the backwards pass in rugby and how you can effectively use it in mini games and other drills to make a pass to your team, as we knew the different levels of ability in class we knew that there would be some participants who might find it difficult to learn, as this was our priority we broke down the session and put the skill into mini activities, for example under and over, we used this as it gave the participants an idea of what we wanted the motion of the ball to feel like and what angle they would be passing the ball to send to their team. The majority of the class did engage really well in the practice and managed to send and receive the majority of the passes, as we saw the level of engagement was high we decided to develop the technique on further and put it into a game like scenario where the players were split into group of 5/6, we then got them to do a slow walk with the ball passing it down the line, but making sure that the players were passing it behind them. Half way through the session we noticed that the players started to become disengaged with the task, this was due to some of their group not understanding the drill. Our end outcome was for the class to have some understanding of the use of the pass and why it is used in the game, as we could see that the majority of the class were not grasping it as easily as we thought, we decided to turn the skill into mini fun activities and make it easier by making them race against the other teams to get their level of engagement back up, in doing this we did the pass side to side drill and under and over, but go them to increase the space between their group so that they were actually passing the ball and the participants slowly saw that the drill was related to the backwards pass.

4th Diary Post – 27/02/2020 – Netball Session

When we returned back St Bartholomew’s after Christmas, the whole sport options had changed and we were now coaching Netball for the same classes. During our second week of the new term we had developed the passing which we coached in the first week, from last weeks session we decided to develop on from the passing and include passing and moving with the ball. To start off with we went over the 4 passes (bounce, chest, overhead and shoulder) checking the participants memory and seeing if they could demonstrate the passes back to us, to see their engagement in last weeks session and their understanding of what the technique consists of with each pass. After reiterating the passes, we moved onto passing and moving, we put the participants in groups of 5’s or 4’s dependant on numbers and then numbered them 1 to 5 or 4. For this drill we wanted them to follow their passes, for example 1 would pass to 2 and then follow their pass, then 2 would pass to three and follow that pass and so on. A lot of the groups started to struggle so we gathered the group round one group who had an idea of what was asked and then got them to mirror their practice, after this some of the groups started to grasp the drill and managed to complete a full cycle. However, there was still a few groups who were not getting the hang of the drill. So we decided as coaches that to achieve our end goal we would split the group in half and have two big groups participating and make it more fun by making it competition based and trying to do one full circuit before the other group, incorporating all the passes we have been using in the last session.

5th Diary Post – 05/03/2020 – Netball Session

Since coaching netball, we have had access to the outside facilities for more space. However due to timings of the schools break/lunch time, our final class have to complete their sessions inside the sports hall. As this is the case it means that our space is restricted more and that when it comes to mini games or partner work, we don’t have enough room to perform the drill correctly. For the final session, we try and condense the numbers down and put the class into groups, which then means that there is more available space.

During the 2nd week of netball we did find it particularly hard to try and perform in the sports hall, as there was not as much room for groups to move into when receiving a pass. This meant that we were on high alert for health and safety and made sure that groups were keeping within the areas we had cones out for them, a lot of the time in the session participants did find themselves struggling to send a pass with the amount of room available. As this was the case we then decided that we would half the class and half the sports hall, (one coach with one group) we did see a lot more enjoyment and engagement in the session when this did occur and the majority of the session objectives were achieved.