Self-reflective essay PDF

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Reflecting on theories of coaching practice, and my own coaching practice in sport....

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Self-reflective essay PRINCIPLES OF COACHING COURSEWORK 2

Word count: 1086

“The purpose of reflection is to try to improve our coaching (not just understand it better) and improve the context in which our coaching takes place” (Ghaye., 2001, Pg 9). Sports coach UK explains how self-reflection is helpful when coaching any session. They explain how coaches are now using self-reflection as part of their professional development, and this helps to positively impact their coaching. Self-reflection helps coaches to develop coaching knowledge, initiate change, create links between theory and practice and improves understanding the coaching process. In my self-reflective essay, I will be using Gibb’s reflective cycle to help me explain my coaching session. Gibb’s model is a 6-stage cycle, this is made up of a description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. This can be shown in the diagram below:

I coached a waterpolo session held at Whitgift school, for my local club Croydon Amphibians on the 11th March 2017. The participants were children aged from 813, this included both boys and girls who were already strong swimmers. The coaching session was 1 hour 15 mins long. As other swimming sessions where going on, I only had a few lanes to coach in. My session included, a 15 minute, land based warm up before hand, where I got the children to complete some strength and conditioning exercises to warm up before entering the pool. This involved using weighted balls, to warm up their arms, stretch bands (also working on their arms) and shoulders to prevent any injuries before the session. After 15 minutes was up, I split the group into numbers (1,2,3), this divided them up into a lane each, which was the space I had for my session. I then gave them lengths to swim, to warm up. Followed by this I told the children to get into pairs, I gave them a ball each, and made exercises of throwing and catching. Whilst they were doing this, I prepared the next exercise (this meant that it was an easier transition between exercises) which was with the goals, and got the children to line up

In conclusion, I felt that my coaching session did go well in the end, but it could have been better if I was more prepared, and didn’t rely on other coaches to turn up. The children all enjoyed the session when I spoke to them afterwards, and I had a lot of positive feedback not just from the children but from their parents too.

Despite the overall positives of my coaching session, for future sessions I will be more prepared and organised by having pre-planned coaching sessions. Sports coach UK, explain that poor planning can “lead performers to become bored and disillusioned with poorly structured session”. During my coaching session, I had children who did misbehave, this could have been because of my poor structure of my session, and this may have made them become bored, which then lead to poor behaviour. In the future, I will use visual aids to explain an exercise, as well as demonstration, and verbal communication. For example, through using a white board to explain different positions, before a mini game. Visual aids are a key aspect to reinforcing new learning, and this can help performers to understand the exercises more clearly, but also help them remember the new information.

Reference List

1. Ghaye., 2001. Coach development self-reflection tool. Leeds. Pg 9. 2. Sports coach UK., 2017. Self-reflection tool (online). Leeds: Available from: http://www.sportscoachuk.org/coach-development-self-reflectiontool. Accessed 27th April 2017. 3. Boundless. 2017. Bandura and observational learning (online). Available from: https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundlesspsychology-textbook/learning-7/cognitive-approaches-to-learning48/bandura-and-observational-learning-203-12738/. Accessed 1st May 2017.

4. Teach PE, 2017.Theories of learning. Available from: http://www.teachpe.com/sports_psychology/learning_theories.php Accessed 1st May 2017. 5. Hargreaves, A. et al., 2010. Skills and strategies for coaching soccer (online). 2nd edition. 6. Sports UK, 2017.Top tips: Skills and qualities of a coach (online) Available from: https://www.sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/top-tips-skills-andqualities.pdf . Accessed 3rd May 2017....