3 minute read
Athletic Development
As a teacher and coach, one of my ambitions is to support pupils whilst they overcome challenges. This past year, however, it was my turn to overcome the challenge of adapting the Athletic Development programme to meet the limitations of the Covid pandemic.
Fortunately, I had the energy, positivity and support of all the pupils who engaged. Here’s a brief snapshot of what transpired…
Lockdown was a test: Are our pupils intrinsically motivated to engage in physical activity without constant supervision or prompting? The approach we took was that each pupil is unique, so we created a diverse offering of physical activity opportunities. At the more interactive end this included livestreamed strength and conditioning sessions, @KWS_AthDev Instagram challenges, Strava check-ins, and workshops on nutrition and sports performance. At the more passive end we offered pupils a bank of carefully selected and/or created resources to guide them in developing their own physical activity plan.
When we were physically in school, we made many necessary changes to our usual offering. In Year 7, 8 and 9, pupils take part in Movement Literacy sessions within the core P.E. curriculum. These classes facilitate the development of fundamental movement skills, introduce our pupils to the basic principles of strength and conditioning, and provide a positive experience of physical activity which is both challenging and fun. We usually lead these sessions in our fitness studio, but this year we ventured into the great outdoors. This afforded us the opportunity to explore new physical and mental challenges including games which required strategy, teamwork tasks, and plenty of peer-on-peer coaching. during lunch and after school, had to adapt the most. We have a very healthy core of avid “gym-goers” who, under normal conditions, would use the gym three or four times a week. This year, however, we enforced tight restrictions and pupils trained with limited numbers in year-group bubbles. The biggest challenge was finding a way for pupils to access the incredibly compact gym space at least twice a week in order for them to stimulate training adaptations. Session lengths were cut, working hours extended, training intensity increased, and the dreaded colourcoded timetable ruled supreme! Despite the additional challenges of cleaning between sessions, rushing to “bubbled” lunchtimes and
avoiding the one-way passage system, I am tremendously proud of our pupils! Cumulatively, we smashed usage records and welcomed and supported many new pupils.
On the sports performance side there were a number of ambitious athletes who must be commended for their incredible dedication and progress through the Covid pandemic. Their individual effort, patience, and determination to improve, despite the rigorous Covid limitations, was inspiring.
This year we bade farewell to the group of pupils who entered the programme in its first year whilst they were in Westwood. They have been incredible role-models for our fitness community. They handled their last year optimistically and I am very thankful for their coleadership of the environment over the years.
So what will we take forward from the experiences we gathered over the past year? Well, there will be plenty, including slight adjustments to the format of our sessions, encouraging more autonomy, and analysing of the accuracy of our programming to provide an even more efficient training offering. The single most important aspect which pupils raised was how much they missed connection. Everything about the physical activity community we have fostered at Kingswood has been built on the foundation of strong and healthy connections between pupils from different year groups. The quality of these relationships plays a fundamental role in motivation, provides positive mentoring, and develops leadership skills. Connection is certainly the key ingredient which we will revert back to when driving the programme forward in future years.
