I would like to begin my final post on the blog by sending my thanks to Gary Johnson and Hurricane Sports. They have provided me with the opporutnity of working along side other fantastic coaches and expanding my knowledge further in a new sport. I would also like to thank the schools which I worked in for their cooperation, both pupils and staff.

The idea behind QuickSticks is to provide a fundamental basis for hockey, developing key skills in a safer and easier environment hopefully leading to increased participation rates in hockey. QuickSticks isn’t so popular at the moment but both schools where we worked have expressed keen interest in obtaining the equipment needed, and my point is, Why not?

In each session, every pupil appeared to enjoy the session, including learning new skills and even encorporating the rules. It is easy to coach and does not need any PE qualified staff to do so because of the session cards which accompany the equipment. It provides a fun and alternate opportunity during PE for both pupils and staff.

For me, as a coach with no knoweldge on QuickSticks or hockey, I was excited at the opportunity to coach a new sport and develop my skills and understanding. And I also feel this will be the same effect on any teachers who are willing to take part in coaching QuickSticks.

As this was the last session we were providing for both primary schools, we agreed to run games and a tournament in a winner stays on approach. Our main aim was to encourage games into the end of our placement and we had achieved this. The tournament format we created didn’t allow any teams to be sitting out for a long period of time as it was a ‘1st goal wins’ format. This results in games lasting no longer than normally 3-4 minutes allowing plenty of rotations and game times.

Session 8, proved to be one of the hardest sessions I have ever experienced as a coach. After welcoming the group into the village hall once more, due to the random bursts of snow, the teacher approached us and asked for a quiet word. As the rest of the pupils were lining up ready to be organised into groups, the teacher informed us that one of the participants had forgotten her prosthetic leg, but still wanted to join in with her wheel chair.

The potential problem which we were now ecnountered with was that the pupil would need to be pushed around because she will also need to be holding the stick. This meant the TA had to also be in the session, escorting the pupil around.

However, we agreed as coaches it would not differ to much, we would simply just have to add time on for certain exercises. However this did not prove to be as easy as we had hoped for with the session becoming slow and lathargic down to the immobility of the pupil and TA, and it also, for some strange reason appeared to distract the rest of the group.

The whole session ended up not only a struggle with the constant changing of ideas and differentiation, but also the bahviour of the rest of the pupils was poor compared to previous weeks.

Development throughout the group since the first session has been incredible with basic rules like: only using the green side of the stick, passing, dribbling and tackling being achieved by all. The sessions had dramatically improved with all session cards being completed by the end of the session showing great development. Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) literature has a key link to the way ‘Quicksticks’ is coached. With many rules being adapted for certain tasks to help aid learning.

In Teaching Games for Understanding pedagogy (TGfU) as a means of providing a holistic learning experience for students and a platform from which to reposition physical education among institutional forces that define boundaries between academic disciplines in the school curriculum. (Light R, Fawns R. 2003)

Punishment for doing something wrong in the PE lesson is treated in the same way as in the classroom, using the whole school approach from week one, fully integrated within the sessions. This has linked well with managing behaviour within the session. As a result in the groups positive behaviour the result is finishing with a game. Using the game as an extrinsic reward for good behaviour acted as a good incentive for the pupils to behave well throughout the session. Finishing with games also inherits the scheme of work we created prior to the placement. Games are also a perfect platform for each member of the group to  display the skills they have develoepd whilst we have been coaching, which not only shows the interest of the participants to learn but also filled me, as a coach with satisfaction that the participants are learning and enjoying doing so.

Reference

Light R, Fawns R (2003) Knowing the Game: Integrating Speech and Action in Games Teaching Through TGfU Quest Vol. 55, Iss. 2,

Session six was the afternoon session this time taking place on the cricket pitch rather than inside the village hall like in session 4. This session was about differentiation. With new drills being used each week thanks to the ‘Quicksticks’ card pack which produces session plans for each session with all the notes required as mentioned in the brief overview of the placement. It was about choosing certain drills to look on a new aspect of ‘Quicksticks’ tackling was the new skill to be taught. This is a part of the game that has a high risk factor. It is very important to get this correct.  Because of that my style of coaching was changed to a more autocratic style with closed questions to make sure they understood what was happening. This allowed me to teach the tackling technique in a safe environment for all. Once this had been taught I changed my coaching style on the spectrum model (Mosston, M & Ashworth, S 1986) enabling this to be incorporated in to drills from previous weeks. An example is trucks and trailers from week one instead on myself being the police car in fact two of the pupils would become police cars.