Twelve students from King Edward VI Sixth Form College have been devoting hours of their time to help coach sport in the community and develop their skills by completing the Higher Sports Leaders Level 3 qualification.
The Higher Sports Leaders Award is a course undertaken by A level students who gain skills in coaching groups of people from a range of abilities and age groups.
The group learn and coach for two hours a week and throughout the year they complete a total of thirty hours of community coaching. They also set up a number of sports days and presentations and supply t shirts, trophies and other awards for the schools they work with such as Oak Wood School and George Eliot School.
The main and most recent event was on Friday the 24th of April where the group hosted a sports day for Oak Wood School, a school for students with special educational needs. The sports day came after 5 weeks of coaching and was a huge day for both sets of students. Not only did it demonstrate the skills the Oak Wood students had developed but also the confidence in coaching that the KEC students had developed.
Over the five weeks the students from Oak Wood were coached in activities including; Table Tennis, Basketball, Football, Hockey and Badminton. They then chose the two that they most enjoyed to focus on for the sports day. During the day they were coached in more depth and this was followed by competitive tournaments with a prize giving at the end of the day.
The day was a huge success and was enjoyed by all who took part I it. One of the students from Oak Wood, Jordan Bratt said ‘I have really enjoyed working with all of the coaches and it was a pleasure working with my partner Ja
mes.’
Katie Fellows, a 2nd year student from Hinckley, said ‘It was a pleasure, and a great opportunity, working with all the Oak Wood students. It gave us all a chance to put together out leadership skills to the test and have our first real test of independent coaching. I am hoping to study Health Studies at De Montfort University and working with community groups will help me understand the benefits of keeping fit and healthy.”
Supervisor of the course, Clare Leeson, said ‘I am extremely proud of all of my students involved in the long process and believe they have all worked hard and became great coaches. I believe the skills they have learnt throughout the 2 years will have given them qualities they will retain for the rest of their lives. I would also like to say a great thanks to everyone involved with Oak Wood and anyone else we have worked with for making our time very enjoyable and we wish you the best of luck in the future.’
All in all, the HSLA students have been determined to influence the Oakwood, and all over students they have worked with, to participate in sport and have the confidence to play as well as helping themselves become better too.
Julia Mason, teacher at Oak Wood School said “I would like to say how valuable this experience has been to the year 11 pupils at Oak Wood School, both in terms of sports skill development and socially. The students from the college have demonstrated their ability to teach the sports to pupils with limited experience of sport and also developed their own confidence and interpersonal skills. I would like to say thank you to the students and wish them luck in their future career paths.”
List of HSLA students: Daniel Brown, Joe Farmer, Sam Greening, James Washbourne, James Husselbury, Adam Raynes, Asten Edmund, Ryan Clarke, Justin Miller, Jack Matts, Kate Fellows and Sophie Pritchard.)
Written by Daniel Brown and James Husselbury. (2nd year students from Nuneaton)