Work experience review

During my time doing work experience I believe I learned a lot of things about the sports industry and the good things and bad things about working in it.

Strengths.

• I learned how to promote a club. At first i thought being assigned a club to promote was going to be rather challenging but I must say I enjoyed it. It was my job to design promotional materials for the badminton club which college run. I learned about different promotional techniques and how to attract more attention to posters by adding things such as bright colours.

•  I got practical coaching experience. I still believe I can improve massively as a football coach so to be given the chance to coach sessions on my placement was great. It helped me improve my communication skills and how to speak to kids of different age and ability. It also helped improve my coaching skills, Confidence and leadership skills and I would happily coach the Chesterfield Development squad again.

•  It was nice to mix with different people during my work experience placement for example when we went to plant trees with the council I got to meet people who I'd never spoken to before and i believe this helped my confidence and communication skills as I'm a rather shy person. It was also good to give something back to the community and to do something outside of sport which gave me great satisifaction.

• I got to experience the not so nice parts of working in the sports industry but that didn't put me off the idea at all. we did things such as clear the stock room of the sports hall out and tidy it up and then putting the nets out and netting on them in the wind and rain on the Wednesday morning which wasn't pleasant but it taught me that not everything about working in the sports industry is good.   

Areas for improvement.

• I believe that we could of been given more written work to do as just promoting the badminton club took me barely any time at all. I also believe we could have maybe sat in on a few theory lessons within the college and maybe help assist in more practical sessions. I believe this would have maybe gave me a better insight to what it's like to be a full time college lecturer.

 My Aims

• To gain more confidence.
• To improve communication skills.
• To improve leadership skills.
• One of the most important ones was to improve my practical coaching skills.

I believe the wide range of activities we covered helped improve all of these for example planting the trees with the council helped improve my communication skills and confidence because I had to work with people I'd never had met. Then the coaching of the Chesterfield development squad helped improve all of the above.

Career aspirations and work experience.

I definitely believe that taking part in my work experience placement has opened my eyes into the opportunists of working in the sports industry. Although I do want to work experience i believe after the two weeks i won't be pursuing a career as a sports lecturer anytime soon, although i do think it would be a great career i don't believe currently it would suit me. 


Luke Monks.

Work Experience diary

Monday 2nd of  December - After arriving at college at 9:00AM we was sat down in the changing rooms to have a briefing of what we would should be expecting during our time doing work experience. We then was told to organize and sort out the stock room in the sports hall for a few hours and then after this it was our job to find and print off motivational quotes to be stuck around the new changing room facilities home to the college football teams.

Wednesday 11th of December - I went in to college Wednesday morning to work on a poster to help promote the college badminton club. I worked on this for a couple of hours before having to get on the mini bus to play against Loughborough college in the afternoon.

Thursday 5th of  December - Again i came into college to continue work on promoting the badminton club which I got finished that morning. I also stayed a couple of hours to work on assignments.

Monday 9th of December - Monday we arrived in college at 9:00AM to find out we would be helping to plant trees that afternoon at the Chesterfield Rugby Club with the Derbyshire County Council. We set off to do that at 1:00PM arriving back at the college around 3:20. That morning I again worked on any other ways i could promote the badminton club and my other outstanding assignments.

Tuesday 10th of December - Tuesday I came into the college to take a coaching session with the kids from the chesterfield development center. The session we ran was fairly basic but was good fun and I think the kids enjoyed it.

Wednesday 11th of  December - We traveled to the colleges new built football facilities to help assist putting the new nets out and the netting on this took around 2 hours. We then officiated a game between the first years on the newly built pitches taking it in turns to referee and to pick teams.

Review of the 1st year

I've actually enjoyed my first year at college a lot more than I originally thought I would, I believe my football ability has improved a massive amount my sharpness, first touch, communication and finishing I believe have improved massively just through playing every Monday on the small AstroTurf at queens park. I believe the coaching and presenting and running events has also made me an a lot more confident person I don't really mind standing up and presenting or talking in front of people as much as I did in September as we didn't do stuff like that at school. I believe the academic side of the year has a been a bit messy at times for example sometimes we'd get assignments handed out after the hand in date on the front and Some tutors just tend to dish assignments out without fully explaining them which doesn't bother me I'd rather just get on with it. I've been happy with the timetable I think it's very reasonable and would like it to be similar next year, I think the amount of practical and theory we have per week is good. I'm happy with the amount of play time I've had over the year and the chances I've had to play for both teams and in cup games. I think every tutor I've met are always very supportive and can help you at anytime with any assignment which is good. Glad I've got a bit of a summer now though! #

Training Programe over the summer

After recently joining simply gym in Chesterfield this is the schedule  I'm going to follow for the next 2 months, If I believe it's working well I'll carry it on during September and onwards if not I'll need to change it up.

Dates in July could change as I may be going away for 1 week.
 
Monday 1st July - Run Holmebrooke
Monday 8th July - Run Holmebrooke
Monday  15th July  - Run Holmebrooke
Monday 22nd July - Run Holmebrooke
Monday 29th July - Run Holmebrooke

Tuesday 2nd July - Gym - Target Area = Back + Shoulders
Tuesday 9th July - Gym - Target Area = Arms
Tuesday16th July - Gym - Target Area = Core
Tuesday 23rd July - Gym - Target Area = Chest 
Tuesday  30th July - Gym - Target Area = Legs

Wednesday 3rd July - Run Holmebrooke
Wednesday 10th July - Run Holmebrooke
Wednesday 17th July - Run Holmebrooke
Wednesday 24th July - Run Holmebrooke
Wednesday 31st July - Run Holmebrooke

Thursday 4th July - Gym - Target Area = Back + Shoulders
Thursday 11th July - Gym - Target Area = Arms
Thursday 18th July - Gym - Target Area = Core
Thursday 25th July - Gym - Target Area = Chest 

Friday July 5th - Run Holmebrooke
Friday July 12th - Run Holmebrooke
Friday July 19th - Run Holmebrooke 
Friday July 26th - Run Holmebrooke

Saturday July 6th - Gym - Target Area = Back + Shoulders
Saturday July 13th - Gym - Target Area = Arms
Saturday July 20th - Gym - Target Area = Core
Saturday July 27th - Gym - Target Area = Chest 

Sundays = Rest Days

During August I'm away from the 2nd to the 5th, 12th to the 19th and the 22nd to the 26th, So during August I'm away the majority of the month and will struggle to repeat the training done in July so during August instead of the running I'm going to focus more on improving my muscular strength and less on the running so I'm going to attend the gym as regularly as I can but still work on Cardio at the Gym on the odd occasion.

12 hour football Review

We as a group ran a 12 hour football event at chesterfield college to help raise money for a charity called academy Africa. The group met at seven in the morning and with the help of other groups managed to play till 7 in the evening. I believe overall the group handled the day very well, it was well officiated, well planned, money was collected in the correct way, people seemed to enjoy it and staff got involved. I believe my contribution to the day was reasonable although I didn't play that much I did a lot of money collecting with the bucket on the front of the college. Their was a slight issue when other groups started to get involved as our group and some of the other didn't get on well causing some incidents which have been addressed, other than that I believe the day overall was very good.

Disability sports day review.

                 Overall I thought the morning ran really well all the students seemed to get involved and enjoy at least one of the activities, I believe our group interacted with the students really well no one seemed to shy away from any of the kids and communicated really well, I believe my performance was good, I believe I communicated with a different range of students very well and did my best to try and persuade the students not playing to join in and get involved, I also joined in a few of the activities which I thought was a good idea to help boost the students confidence. I believe I could of maybe got more involved in the warm up and maybe sorted the change overs to different activities slightly better.

playing review so far

I don't feel my overall playing performance has been so bad during the time I've played, although I do believe there is still a lot of room for improvement I still believe I could improve my fitness so I'm not struggling during the last 15-20 minutes, the biggest area I'd like to improve on is my strength I believe when playing at time I struggle to hold the ball up as a striker and working on my strength would allow me to be able to do this better.