This year, members of the sixth form were invited to take part in a sports coaching volunteer programme called the Community Sports Leadership Award. The award is achieved by completing a minimum of ten hours volunteer work as well as attending lessons after school on Thursdays taught by Mr Luck, which address the theory and practical aspects of basic coaching.

Mr Luck spent the first few weeks explaining how to structure an effective sessions, with a warm up, a skill related task, a game situation and then a cool down. After this he identified ways in which each of his sessions could have been developed and discussed the quality of his leadership as he taught us. The CSLA lessons are structured so that the first half involves playing games such as “Taboo”, which involves describing a word without saying the word itself or closely associated words. The purpose of this being to articulate a message in basic terms so that a group can still understand the point that you are putting across. The second half is practical, the week before; Mr Luck would choose a few boys to prepare their own session that they would put into practice for the next lesson. The chosen boys would carry their sessions out on the group and afterwards, Mr Luck would ask for feedback from the students and would give his own criticism so the individual could learn how to improve for next time.

The first chance the CSLA pupils had to apply these newly acquired skills was in the Hockey Festival at Hawkenbury AstroTurf. Organised by the pupils with the help of Mr Luck the pupils had to write letters to local schools inviting them to the festival and a letter to Tunbridge Wells Hockey Club asking if they would help manage the festival. Five boys volunteered to help, with James Pallett and Dan Summons coaching our schools Year 8 team, the remaining volunteers helped by recording the scores, officiating and timing matches. Judd, Uplands and Bennett also attended the festival which was a great success.

By Justin Shea