As newly appointed Sports Ambassadors for St Bart’s, we went to the Berkshire Schools Inspire Academy Day at Theale Green School. We learnt about how to run sports sessions, make them fun and engaging, to motivate students and make sessions fully inclusive.
The day started with a talk from former British Olympic and Commonwealth swimmer, Tom Haffield. Tom spoke to us about the achievements throughout his career and how he had got there through hard work, dedication and sacrifices, by him and his family, starting at the very young age of 2.
He also spoke of the support from his coach when Tom ‘fell out of love’ with swimming at the age of 17. Tom began messing around in training, not concentrating and he frequently argued with his coach. Without the encouragement of his coach, Tom told us that he would definitely not have got to the Olympic and Commonwealth games and gone on to achieve what he did.
Our first session was about what makes a good sports leader and what qualities, skills and knowledge we require. We got a clear idea of how we can be good leaders.
In our second session we learnt about how we can be adaptable to vary our own lessons, so they are fully inclusive for everyone, regardless of their aptitude or disability. We played seated volleyball as an example of this. It was our favourite session as we learnt in an active way, which we can also use for our own sessions.
Our third activity was learning how to run a session in a way that is enjoyable and engaging to students. We got a chance to teach the other students little games as a way of practicing.
Our final session was about decision making. We were given different scenarios and we had to decide what, as leaders, what we would do. This ties in with being adaptable because we had the chance to change our minds after each outcome.
Our last part of the day was action planning, where we met up with our mentor (Mrs Leach) to think of ways we could apply all we had learnt to St Bart’s. We came up with ideas such as targeting certain groups who are typically the least active with clubs intending to get them more active, which leads to better school grades and a healthier lifestyle. We really think this would be beneficial to our school and we would love to help students, which is why we are so grateful for the opportunity.
Year 10 Sport Ambassadors
