HS Dance showcase, team member/co-leader Early September 21 – Late March 22
Experience: Coaching Junior Schoolers Track and field (21′) LO3, LO4, LO6
Experience: Coaching Middle Schoolers Cross Country (22′)
This activity/service emboldened my ability to lead and my leadership skills by allowing me to support, and coach younger children in two of my main sports.
From September to November 21′, I worked with Coach Deeth to help coach, and design drills and activities for the Junior School Track and Field activity.
From February to March 22′, I worked with Coach Hooper to help support and coach the Middle School Cross Country team/activity.
LO3 [Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience] & LO4 [Show commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences]
Key skills: Planning and leading a session, building confidence by leading warm-ups, drills, and cooldowns. Moreover, making the activity sessions fun & safe
Key skill: Being organised, emailing the coach if you are unable to attend a training session, as well as organising training sessions and drills beforehand
During both of these opportunities, I was able to plan, and execute sessions for younger members of the school. I made sure to work on key skills such as leadership, and form activities that develop the student as an athlete – while simultaneously being fun and safe. This is important as this is not a competitive training session, but an activity for all – and the main aim is to introduce the sport to these students and let them experiment by having fun doing some of the basic drills to teach correct running form.
An example of this, In one of the junior school sessions, I organised an activity where we would run a few different types of relays. These relays were designed to encompass the different muscle groups that are used within running. In this activity, running is the main focus, however, we added an exercise that students had to complete once reaching the far side before coming back and exchanging their batons. We used 5 burpees (chest-to ground), 10 star jumps, and 5 push ups before the final relay. I decided to make the last relay the toughest, and would challenge the kids, I demonstrated the suicide relay – where a runner runs to each of the lines on the field and go back, increasing in distance as fast as possible.
In order to make this activity fun, as a relay usually is, there must be a sense of competitiveness. For this reason, we attempted to make fair teams, of equal numbers and genders. This made the relays much closer and more fun as the kids were more engaged with the relay itself.
The use of batons here is targeted in familiarizing these junior school students with track and field equipment that they may use in the future, practicing a baton handoff is great practice.
LO6 [Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance] –
Key point: Treating everyone fairly and include participants of all abilities and disabilities, ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds.
Even in a developed international school such as ours here in Singapore, racism and discrimination still occurs from time to time. Whether infrequently or not, this is simply unacceptable. In order to counter this issue, I made sure that when I was coaching I included everyone equally, and did not exclude or give any bias to certain people. For example, in the past I’ve observed various coaches who have focused on and given tips to only the best athletes in the group. This is detrimental to the rest of the group as they will not be able to develop their skills as well as the others and thus will not be able to become competitive! Furthermore, discrimination I have faced in the past is not pleasant, and it takes a toll on your mentality – disincentivising you from continue to try and continue to train.
Thus, in these sessions – I made sure that I was approachable, I accounted for everyone and any difficulties they may have been having during the session – and I made sure that everyone was both challenged, and had fun during the session. Being a friendly role model is a key to inspiring future generations to join the sport in question, whether that be running, track and field, or any other sport. Moreover, it was imperative for me to encourage and praise the students during the session so that they feel happy, and are motivated to continue working. Instead of providing negative feedback, a feedback or criticism should always be preceded by a compliment such as: “You’re doing awesome, keep it up Jack! One thing I want you to focus on is to try increase your stride length by stretching your legs out further during the next sprint – this will limit the amount of ground strikes and help you move faster”
I have chosen to not include any media/pictures from these sessions as I do not want to post any pictures of the younger kids without consent for their privacy.