SD2200 Work Placement

Hello everyone, welcome to my work placement blog,

This week I started my work experience at ESPE with Elaine Smith. I was very excited to start however I was also very nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. The morning started off with gymnastics at Duke Street Primary School. The session was delivered to one reception class and one mixed reception and year 1 class. I was very apprehensive because I had never coached gymnastics before, and it isn’t a sport I have a great deal of knowledge in. During the first lesson I observed Mrs Smith and learnt the format of her sessions. She covered different types of jumps and how to land them correctly, off a bench. The children listened well and enjoyed each part of the session because it was made fun and enjoyable by Mrs Smith. Elaine explained each jump slowly so that the children could easily understand what was expected. They got into groups with one bench and one mat. They had to take it into turns to walk across the bench, jump off the end, and land correctly. Mrs Smith explained the three types of jumps she’d like everyone to practice. This included the straight jump; star jump and tuck jump; below are the jumps we wanted all the students to complete by the end of the lesson.

When the reception students first attempted the walk across the bench, I was quite surprised how many struggled to walk normally and balance at the same time. This opened my eyes that when coaching younger children, the easiest of things need to be explained carefully. To assist Elaine with the delivery I helped the individuals that were struggling on a one to one basis and throughout the session I gave encouragement and praise.

In the afternoon we went to All Saints Primary school and did tag rugby with the years 3’s. The main aim of the session was to learn how to hold the rugby ball correctly and the position to hold it when running. This was also a new sport for me and throughout the session I learnt new skills myself. Teaching year 3’s was a lot easier than the reception and year 1 classes because they were able to understand instructions a lot quicker. The second part of the afternoon we did the ‘30-minute active fitness’ with the whole of KS2 (Y3, Y4, 75 and Y6). The ‘30-minute active fitness’ is a new scheme set out by the government to increase physical activity in primary schools (this will be explained in more detail in a future blog). Elaine’s fitness challenge for today was to incorporate chairs, within fitness, for 15 minutes. This activity I was very excited for because it was something I had never done before and I was intrigued to see how it would be delivered. Chair fitness required the children to follow Mrs Smith at the front of the hall and complete exercises such as squats, plank, arm circles, ab exercises and side bends while incorporating the use of a chair. This was a fun way of getting all the children to participate in physical exercise all at the same time.