Category: Employability

On the 5th March 2020, I attended two employability workshops; ‘Mistakes to avoid when writing a CV’ and ‘How to write a cover letter’.

The first of these – Mistakes to avoid when writing a CV – was very helpful as I have written CVs before, but had never really been taught how to do it properly. A key point was to tailor the CV to different job roles and different companies. This was something I’d never really considered before, but different jobs require different experience, so the CV should differ to require the relevant information and experience for that job. Another point made was that the CV should be easy to read and no longer than two pages. This was something I knew but my CV is too long so I will have to look at it and remove any irrelevant information in response to this workshop. This will help me in future as I now have a much better understanding of what employers are looking for in a CV, so by using this to write my CVs in future, I am more likely to get a job.

The second workshop I attended was ‘How to write a cover letter’. I felt I needed this workshop more as have never written a cover letter and didn’t know where to start. The first thing I learned was that the letter needs to be concise, around one side of A4, and in a business letter format with addresses laid out properly. This is to make the letter look professional to employers and to give them a good first impression. The letter should include an introduction about you and some of your relevant experience, followed by a paragraph about why you would be good for that job and what you can bring to the table, then a paragraph about why it is this company you want to work for. This should include further research in to the company and why it appeals to you.

This has helped me a lot and I am now much more confident in writing both a CV and a cover letter and I feel I am better equipped when it comes to getting a job.

On the 23rd January 2020, I attended two workshops led by the level 6 students. These were titled “Behaviour management” and “Parents influence on children’s participation and performance in sport”.

Firstly, the behaviour management workshop was very useful as I had elected to take the positive behaviour management module for the next semester. This workshop gave me a look at what this module would be about and provided me with some knowledge to take into the start of the module to help me to understand it better than I would without it. Behaviour management is something that all coaches and teachers have to deal with so I think it is very important to understand the reasons behind why children misbehave and what the best way to deal with misbehaviour is, and that is what this workshop was about.

The second workshop – Parents influence on children’s participation and performance in sport – was very interesting as it provided a view on children’s performance that I hadn’t considered much before. This workshop provided me with some examples of both positive and negative impacts of parents involvement in their children’s sports. For example, if parents are involved in their children’s lives and they join a sports club, the parent could drive them to practice and games and buy the child’s kit. However if they get too involved and push the child to go to training when they don’t want to, it could put them off the sport all together. This could help me in my coaching as I know that if children are not motivated to play the sport anymore, the parents could be at fault and I may be able to have a word with them and explain this.

As part of the Coaching Pedagogy in Context module, my placement group and I have mentored level 4 groups during their festival delivery on two occasions. The first of these was the 11th November 2019 and the second was the 2nd March 2020. During these sessions, I learnt quite a lot about how to give feedback and what I should be looking for during the session that requires feedback.

By doing this, I am better equipped to succeed in practical assessments at university as I understand what the tutors are looking for when they are assessing my coaching. In the same way, it gave me a different view of a coaching session; for example in the second festival, I saw one of the coaches giving praise to one of the participants but not specifying what it was they had done well. I could see that the participant was confused what they had done and therefore would not be able to repeat the act they were praised for as they didn’t know what it was. I recognised this as something I do quite a lot when I am coaching as I expect the participant to know what they have done well, but sometimes they don’t, so it was useful for me to also reflect on my own coaching.

This experience could help me in the future as I am aiming to become a PE coordinator in a primary school. A small part of this job is watching other teachers PE sessions to see if the way PE is being delivered in the school is working and what may need to be changed. By having experience of doing this already, it would stand me in good stead to do jobs like this in the future.

On Monday 2nd March, I volunteered to referee a netball match at my placement school (Weetwood Primary). I have been assisting at the weekly netball club after school each Friday and this was a good opportunity to see how the school organised matches.

Netball is not a sport I have been involved in much before and I have only picked up the rules from watching the teacher deliver the games at the club, so this was a good chance for me to test my knowledge of a new sport. Whilst refereeing I had chance to watch both teams, so in the breaks between each quarter I gave the team some key points to work on for the next quarter in order to try to win the game. This was very helpful for me as most of my coaching has been done within sessions and I rarely get the chance to coach in a more competitive environment.

This experience will help me in the future as it has given me a better idea of how coaching in a competitive environment may differ from coaching in a session. As well as this, I have improved my understanding of the organisation of a netball game, which gives me another sport to add to my repertoire of sports I am confident in coaching and organising. This could give me the edge when going for a job as a primary school PE coordinator as a huge part of that job is organising fixtures and events in a range of different sports.