Critical Reflection of SSPP Volleyball placement
During the placement at St Peter and St Paul Catholic School, Lincoln, there were a few incidents that arose, causing complications with the volleyball sessions that were planned. The sessions took part during Monday lunchtimes, with the first problem being that lunchtime at the school lasts for 45 minutes. As 45 minutes isn’t a very long time for a volleyball session to take place, this formed the basis of the problem, where each week there would be new participants turn up, who had not played volleyball before. The first session was planned to introduce the basic skills and techniques to be used during a game of volleyball, and the rules and regulations of the game to be introduced. This would then, in theory, aid the future sessions in order to play a tournament style format each week due to time restraints. However, as a result of new participants turning up each week, the first part of each session had to be used to introduce the skills to new participants, and this time frame to be used by previous participants to practice those.
This was a problem for the first few weeks as there wasn’t a set number of participants turning up to each session, as well as those who were turning up, being made up of differing abilities, and having new participants each week. We had just 45 minutes to deliver each session so after speaking with the PE staff, decided that a match play arrangement would be best suited for the pupils, for them to attend and play matches. This worked well but couldn’t be used to the full extent in which had been planned due to having to go over the basics each week there were new participants within the group. This varied between basic technique drills, to developing into more challenging drills that would still suit those regular participants who had been turning up from the first week.
Having volleyball on offer during this placement offered an alternative sporting activity in order to meet the aims set out by PESSYP back in 2002. The main aim this links to, is to, “enhance the take-up of sporting opportunities by five- to sixteen-year-olds by increasing the percentage of school children who spend a minimum of two hours each week on high quality PE and school sport within and beyond the curriculum from 25% in 2002 to 75% in 2006 and 85% by 2008” (Youth Sport Trust). Volleyball isn’t usually used within mainstream PE, and this showed due to the number of participants that turned up to the sessions, exceeding expectations. Going on from this, the competitive game play approach to the sessions was successful, as due to the time constraints, the participants were eager to get into game situations. This supports Green’s view of, “boys & girls are still faced with a curriculum which is dominated by competitive, physical games based PE” (2008).
Sport England highlight that there are two key priorities when delivering the 5 hours of PE and Sport, one of which is, “to improve the quality and quantity of Curriculum PE on offer in schools”. “This is to ensure it is relevant to young people that it is delivered in a way that meets their varying needs and that school leaders understand its full benefits.” This is strongly linked to the volleyball sessions at the school, and could show why new participants turned up each week. It was a positive that more participants turned up each week due to the success of the sessions, but it did cause the sessions to be adapted as already mentioned. This showed each week, a greater range of abilities due to the participants taking part for different lengths of time since the sessions started. This also caused a problem when it came to the matches as the teams had to be picked out in terms of ability in order for the tournament format to run as competitively and fairly as possible.
Due to having to start each session with the basic skills so that new participants were able to understand how to play volleyball, this formed a solution to the problem of having new participants each week. This proved to be quite useful, as this time could be used for previous participants to practice the set skills outside a game situation, acting as a good warm up drill. As a result of this, quick fire drills were them implemented into the beginning of each session so that those new participants are still learning the basic skills, but the previous participants were still being challenged through the use of the drills in place.
The PESSYP strategy also aims to, “by 2010 the aim is to offer all children at least 4 hours of sport every week, comprised of at least 2 hours high quality PE and sport at school and the opportunity for at least a further 2-3 hours beyond the school day (delivered by a range of school, community and club providers).” This is strongly linked to the volleyball sessions as the sessions on offer, did work towards more participation in sport within school. Although this is a positive to work towards the increased participation within school, it also caused a problem due to the time restrictions as already mentioned. As the pupils at the school know they only have 45 minutes for their lunch, it meant that pupils would come to the sessions at different times. This also made the problem of having new participants during the sessions even worse, as if there were pupils wanting to join in with the sessions after their lunch, then it made the sessions having to filter in new people into teams, or in some cases, having to filter a new team into the running of play.
This was obviously the main reason that the problem of having new participants turn up each week and at different times during the session. However, research, such as Graham and George (1995) offered solutions in order to overcome this. They found that, “majority of pupils felt that PE lessons are heavily based around performance, such as successfully carrying out a skill that is being taught”, so due to the volleyball sessions being heavily based around match play once the basic skills had been taught, graham and George would argue, especially as it was during their lunch, that the pupils would use these sessions for enjoyment, so as more pupils turned up each week, the tournament based approach became more competitive, therefore benefitting the pupils enjoyment of the sessions.
Jones and Cheetham (2001) research supports this as they found that, the delivery of any form of physical activity can shape the participants view and therefore impact on their performance. This shows that due to the match play approach, more pupils were willing to take part, and with the added factor of competition, it showed that during the volleyball sessions, all of the pupils were eager to succeed. This also supports the reasons for the problem that we faced, as due to the enjoyment of the sessions and how many participants turned up each week, more pupils would want to take part due to how successful the sessions were. Another problem that arose linked to this was the time scale of when the sessions were. This was because of half term falling in the middle of the block of sessions. So the week back from half term saw the same problem as the weeks prior to it, as more pupils would turn up who hadn’t played before.
In order to prevent this happening in the future, a number of different approaches could be taken. Such as, the tournament play being divided into “House” teams, as all of the school pupils are divided into different houses in which all school competitions are played in. This could have acted as a greater incentive for the pupils to turn up from the first week if there were House points on offer. Another approach that could be taken would be to advertise the lunchtime activity more. This is because, although there were flyers around school and through registers, due to school holidays and having House assemblies, our coaching group was only able to speak to the school once, during a whole school assembly where we informed the pupils what would be happening during the sessions, what they could expect to get from taking part in the sessions, and how they would go about signing up for the lunchtime activity. In hindsight, it could have been more successful if we were able to have a longer time slot during the assembly, or to just have delivered an assembly to each house.
If we were able to deliver a presentation, or take one of each of the House assemblies in the week before the sessions were due to start, then the pupils would have received more information about the volleyball sessions that were due to take place, and be able to ask any questions they may have had. However, due to only being able to provide a basic outline to them at the end of a whole school assembly, they may not have received enough information to want to take part from the beginning, hence why more pupils turned up each week due to hearing and seeing how successful the sessions had been going.
Going on from this, in order to avoid this happening in the future, the structure of the sessions could be adapted. For example, in order to participate in the sessions, the participants had to attend every session from the beginning. This would then structure the sessions into specific parts of a volleyball game, such as teaching a specific skill on separate sessions rather than all at once. This would then encourage the participants to attend all of the sessions as they would need the knowledge and skills being taught in each session to then take part in the tournament at the end of the block of sessions.
The final method that could be implemented in order to avoid this happening again would be to have an after school club, where there could be more time to deliver the sessions. If this was the case, then it would offer the coaching staff more time to teach the techniques to those new participants, whilst the other coaching staff could still carry on with the tournament style of play. If this was able to happen then it would work much better as the new participants could then filter into the tournament style of play easier, as the sessions wouldn’t be so rushed, and there would be more opportunity for all of the participants to take part, as the coaching staff could structure the sessions more specifically in order to meet the needs of all of the participants.
References
Youth Sport Trust. (2012). What Is The PESSYP Strategy?. Available: http://www.teambedsandluton.co.uk/microsites/competitions4all/about-us/what-is-the-pessyp-strategy.
Ken Green (2008). Understanding Physical Education. London: Sage. 9-10; 17; 20.
Sport England. (2011). The PE and Sport Strategy for Young People. A guide to delivering the five hour offer. . (.), 1-15.
Graham, George. (1995). Implications for Teachers and Researchers.. Physical Education through Students’ Eyes and in Students’ Voices. 14 (4), 478-482.
Jones and Cheetham. (2001). Physical Education in the National Curriculum: Its Purpose and Meaning for Final Year Secondary School Students. European Journal of Physical Education. 6 (2), 81-100.