Category: Blog Posts

Summary of reflections

This year I have learned a lot about coaching, and I feel my ability to coach has definitely improved through my experiences at placement. The school I have been at on placement (Weetwood Primary School) have been very supportive, especially Mrs. Lowe (the P.E. teacher). 

When we first started placement, we were struggling to motivate the participants to put effort into our sessions. After doing some reading around self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and the theory of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), it became apparent that I needed to provide the participants with a feeling of competence. I planned to do this by creating a points system for the participants when doing a task, which is something I will definitely use in future when coaching.

During our time at placement, there were certain sessions that were more challenging than others. One of these was our fourth session, in which there was no teacher present. During this session, the behaviour was a lot worse than usual. In blog post 2, I have discussed how I think we could have handled this issue better by demonstrating care after reading the caring coaching model (Fisher et al., 2019). This has changed how I would think about situations like this in the future.

In blog post 3, I discussed what happened when we were put with a new class for a short period of 3 weeks. I mentioned that we had planned to try to improve skills from the first week and try to have the class playing a full game by week 3. However, after reading the personal assets framework for sport (Cote, Turnidge & Evans, 2014), I understand that before skills can be improved, quality relationships need to be built with the participants. Thinking back about the participants I worked with at placement, the ones that I had built quality relationships with were the ones that improved the most.

How my employability has developed

I feel my employability has improved the most this year through the coaching experience I have gained at placement, but I have also gained experience through attending different events throughout the year. 

Firstly, I mentored two different level 4 groups at two different festivals. This was a valuable experience as it gave me a chance to watch coaching being performed from a different angle. I could see what the coaches were doing wrong and after reflecting on it, I realised that I sometimes do some of the things I advised them not to do or to do differently. This gave me an opportunity to reflect on the way I coach and change some of my habits. 

I also attended two workshops which the level 6 students ran earlier in the year. The workshops I attended were titled “Behaviour management” and “Parents influence on children’s participation and performance in sport”. Both workshops provided me with different views on why children behave in certain ways and the ways in which parents can affect children. I would not have thought about either of these issues in the ways I was taught in these workshops, so it has provided me with a different way of thinking when dealing with issues in the future.

At my placement, as well as coaching sessions I have been helping with an after-school netball club. I volunteered to referee a game for the club against another school, which also involved coaching during the breaks between each quarter. This gave me the opportunity to coach in a different setting than I am used to. Coaching in a game is completely different to coaching in a session, and if I go into teaching and run a sports club, this is something I will need to do.

Finally, I attended two employability courses entitled “Mistakes to avoid when writing a CV” and “How to write a cover letter”. These courses were very useful as I have never been taught how to write a CV or a cover letter before, so learning how to will definitely increase my chances of getting a job in the future.

SMART action plan for next year

Next year, I aim to gain more coaching experience and improve my coaching ability. Specifically, I would like to achieve level 1 qualifications in at least two more sports, and either find a coaching job or volunteer to coach on top of placement. I will be able to measure my goals as I will know if I have achieved two qualifications by completing the courses and receiving the certifications, and I will aim to complete at least one hour of extra coaching per week to measure how much extra experience I have gained. I believe these goals are achievable as I have already passed a level 1 course in football so I will be able to pass them in two other sports as well. I also believe that I can achieve one hour of extra coaching per week as I have plenty of spare time in my timetable and one hour per week is not too much to take out of it. In the future I want to become a primary school teacher and I believe both of these goals are relevant to that; if I do become a primary school teacher, I will have to teach many different sports in P.E. lessons, so it will be useful to have qualifications in as many sports as possible. Also, all coaching experience will help me as I may come across situations I have not come across before which will help me to develop. Finally, the goals are time-bound as I am aiming to complete them by the end of the next academic year.

References

Bandura, A. (1977) ‘Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change’, Psychological Review, (2), p. 191. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsovi&AN=edsovi.00006832.197703000.00002&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 4 March 2020).

Côté, J., Turnnidge, J. and Evans, M. B. (2014) ‘The Dynamic Process of Development through Sport. / Dinamični Proces Razvoja Prek Športa’, Kinesiologia Slovenica, 20(3), pp. 14–26. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=101535985&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 4 March 2020).

Fisher, L. A., Larsen, L. K., Bejar, M. P., & Shigeno, T. C. (2019). A heuristic for the relationship between caring coaching and elite athlete performance. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 14(2), 126.

Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2000) ‘Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being’, The American Psychologist, (1). Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsbig&AN=edsbig.A63492306&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 10 December 2019).

For our final placement block, we were asked to teach year 4 samba dancing. Before the first session, I was worried as I’d never coached dance before. For the first session we planned to put on a video of a dance routine and pause it after every one or two moves for the children to practice the moves, if they didn’t understand a move we would demonstrate.

My main concern was that some of the participants may not want to join in, however when we put the video on, everyone watched it and copied the moves like we asked them to. This surprised me so I looked at some theories surrounding why they enjoyed the session so much.

First, I looked at self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000). This states that participants need autonomy, competence and relatedness to be determined to complete a task. They had autonomy because we weren’t giving them instructions; they simply had to watch the video and then they chose to copy the moves they saw. The competence came because of the video we chose. Most of the participants were beginners, so we chose a simple video for them to copy, this meant they could all complete the moves and gain the feeling of competence. Relatedness was obtained through the whole group attempting the dance together, so no one had to be embarrassed.

I also looked into achievement goal theory (Dweck, 1986). This states that if participants are able to do something, they feel competent and enjoy the experience and therefore are motivated to do it again. This relates to our session as the participants were able to do the parts of the video they were shown. This led to them feeling competent and therefore enjoying the experience of dancing, because of this they were then motivated to try the next move we showed them. This continued through the whole routine and the class seemed to really enjoy the session.

References:

Dweck, C. S. (1986) ‘Motivational processes affecting learning’, American Psychologist. (Psychological Science and Education), 41(10), pp. 1040–1048.

Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2000) ‘Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being’, The American Psychologist, (1). Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsbig&AN=edsbig.A63492306&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 10 December 2019).

During our second block at placement, we were coaching year 3 benchball for three weeks. The first week was a very simple session involving passing activities and then a game to assess the participants abilities. We realised that the participants were not moving into space after passing the ball so the team was not advancing forwards.

To give the participants more practice of moving into space after passing, we used task constraints (Newell, 1986) to adapt an activity they had already done. This activity is passing a ball around in their groups of four and then moving to a different position, however they were still not moving. The constraint we put in place to force them to move was the addition of a defender. This made them realise that when a defender is in the way, they have to move to allow their teammate to pass the ball. This worked in the activity but when they went into a game, they stopped moving again once they had passed. This may be due to the added complexity of a game, meaning they forgot tactical movements which they had been using all lesson.

As it was only a three week block we did not have time to work on this any further, however if we had continued this block for longer, I would have used the task constraints within games from the start of the session. This is a teaching games for understanding (TGfU) approach (Thorpe, Bunker and Almond, 1986). By doing this the participants would be able to realise that when a defender is in the way they have to move to receive the ball, as they did in the drill. However by providing them with this experience within the context of a game, they would be used to the higher complexity and would not forget to move and therefore they would retain the skill.

References:

Newell, K. (1986) Constraints on the development of coordination. Motor development in children: Aspects of coordination and control, pp. 341-360.

Thorpe, R., Bunker, D. and Almond, L. (1986) Rethinking games teaching. Department of Physical Education and Sports Science, University of Technology.

In our second term at placement, we were put with year 3 after working with year 4 for the first term. We knew we only had a three week block with the class, so we needed to get to know them quite quickly in the first session and work out how to make an impact through our sessions in only three weeks.

When planning these sessions I was unsure how we would be able to make an impact in just 3 weeks whilst also getting to know this class. This led to the content being rushed through in a shorter amount of time than it required and therefore, the participants not receiving the skills we wanted to provide them with.

The personal assets framework for sport (Cote, Turnidge & Evans, 2014) suggests that in order for learning to occur, there must be three dynamic elements in place. One of these elements is quality relationships. As we only had three weeks with this class, we never built these relationships and the children’s learning suffered as a result. If I am in a situation like this again where I am only coaching a group for a few weeks, I must remember to focus on building quality relationships in the first lesson.

Chow (2013) says that learning is non-linear, meaning you cannot predict the progress participants will make by a certain session. When delivering a short block, this can have a massive impact as participants who take longer to progress than others may not have time to achieve the objectives set out. This explains why the participants did not all achieve our objectives in the three week block. To combat this in future, it would be useful to have different levels of objectives and make these clear to participants once we have seen the levels they are performing at.

References:

Chow, J.Y. (2013). Nonlinear learning underpinning pedagogy: Evidence, challenges, and implications. Quest, 65(4), 469-484. DOI: 10.1080/00336297.2013.807746

Côté, J., Turnnidge, J. and Evans, M. B. (2014) ‘The Dynamic Process of Development through Sport. / Dinamični Proces Razvoja Prek Športa’, Kinesiologia Slovenica, 20(3), pp. 14–26. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=101535985&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 4 March 2020).

In our fourth week at placement, Mrs. Lowe took a team to a cross country competition, so she wasn’t in school. The children were acting up as they thought they’d get away with more silly behaviour. When this happened, we stopped and had them sit in silence for one minute to demonstrate that they were wasting their own time. This improved their behaviour, although after reflecting on-action, there may have been better ways to deal with it.

One theory – SCENE (Gano-Overway & Guivernau, 2018) – suggests that coaches should nurture care in athletes and teach kind behaviour. As this was the first time we’d taken a session without the teacher, it was the first chance the participants got to see how we dealt with situations. Using a punishment when the behaviour got challenging may not have come across as caring. Sitting them down and having a friendly talk with them may have been viewed as a more caring way of dealing with the situation.

By being more patient and talking to the participants rather than giving a punishment straight away, we would be adhering to the caring coaching model (Fisher et al., 2019) which suggests that when a coach demonstrates care, the athlete gives more effort and therefore increases their sporting performance and develops holistically.

I think the problems were increased due to our lack of experience with this class. We hadn’t been working with the class for long, so hadn’t yet developed quality relationships with the participants. The personal assets framework for sport (Cote, Turnnidge, & Evans, 2014) suggests that this is one of three elements needed to get performance, participation and personal development from the participants. Because of this, I believe that if this had happened after we’d been with them for a few more weeks, they may not have messed about as much and we’d have controlled it better.

References:

Côté, J., Turnnidge, J. and Evans, M. B. (2014) ‘The Dynamic Process of Development through Sport. / Dinamični Proces Razvoja Prek Športa’, Kinesiologia Slovenica, 20(3), pp. 14–26. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=101535985&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 4 March 2020).

Fisher, L. A., Larsen, L. K., Bejar, M. P., & Shigeno, T. C. (2019). A heuristic for the relationship between caring coaching and elite athlete performance. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 14(2), 126.

Gano-Overway, L., & Guivernau, M. (2018). Setting the SCENE: Developing a caring youth sport environment. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 9(2), 83–93.

In our second session, we attempted to combine different gymnastic elements that we had taught. The aim was to come up with a simple routine, involving all of the elements they had previously learned. The teacher also wanted us to use the climbing frame, so we set up three stations. Two stations were for groups to come up with and practice routines, the other was the climbing frame. We split the class in to three groups and had one group on each station, rotating every 10 minutes.

Before we started, we explained each station and was excited to go on the climbing frame. However, when they weren’t on the frame, they didn’t put in any effort as they weren’t interested in that part of the session. For this reason, we decided to use the frame as a reward; we told the participants they would only go on the frame if they did well. Using In-action reflection, this seemed like a good idea. However, looking back at the session on-action, I’ve realised that rather than creating extrinsic motivation, we should have created intrinsic motivation so the children who had been on the frame weren’t bored of the routines having already been on the frame, and the groups who were yet to go on were more focused on the routines.

To create intrinsic motivation I could add a scoring system for the routines. This links to self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) as the participants have autonomy by being able to create their own routines and relatedness by doing this in groups, but adding that points system would give them competence because getting a good score would show them they can do gymnastics. This is supported by the theory of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) which states that performance accomplishment is one of four factors needed for a participant to feel self-efficacy.

References:

Bandura, A. (1977) ‘Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change’, Psychological Review, (2), p. 191. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsovi&AN=edsovi.00006832.197703000.00002&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 4 March 2020).

Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2000) ‘Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being’, The American Psychologist, (1). Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsbig&AN=edsbig.A63492306&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 10 December 2019).