London, England, United Kingdom
During my time volunteering at SACS I worked across both the junior and senior school. This gave me a great insight how one of the leading and oldest all boys schools in South Africa operates. Building upon strong foundations laid early on and developing the pupil into a 'SACS gentleman'. An all round member of the community with outstanding academics, personable skills, a love for sport and competition but most of all a strong belonging and passion for the school and peers. My role consisted of planning and delivering age appropriate PE lessons coupled with regular feedback and assessment. Contribution to the running of extra-curricular summer sports program. This included rugby, cricket, water polo, swimming and athletics. I assisted with the organisation and running of whole school and inter school events such as athletics day, swimming galas and inter school polo. Further to my formal responsibilities were informal ones too such as hosting opposition staff and parents during and after sports events. This is a huge part of tradition at SACS and places a real emphasis on community and embodies the schools motto 'Spectemur agendo', let us be judged by our deeds.
Starting at Thames I was tasked with building and leading an inclusive yet competitive PE & Sports program that would support the needs of the pupils and attract future prospective pupils to the school. Additionally oversee and organise many of the extra curricular opportunities and programmes. Both programs were based on the development of five key skills; communication, leadership, teamwork, resilience and problem solving. The idea behind this approach is that the opportunities given to the pupils will encourage them to be active for life and build their self confidence. We wanted to ensure that every pupil that leaves the school has all the tools necessary to live a successful and healthy life. My team and I did this through a pupil centred approach. As the Head of the PE department my responsibilities included writing and updating the schemes of learning, creating resources to match these schemes and ensuring lessons are delivered at a high quality in adherence to the teaching standards. My specific focus has been to make sure all pupils are able to access the lesson whether that be in the classroom or practically as when I joined the school this was something that needed developing the most. My role as the Head of Sport consisted mainly of organising fixtures with other schools, managing a variety of staff (part time, volunteers, members of the teaching body etc.), booking facilities and transport, whilst making sure all pupils are catered for within our offering. I run a three tiered approach of engagement meaning all pupils will find a suitable level of challenge within the offering. During the year Thames participated in over 100 fixtures (compared to pre-covid norms of an average of 10 fixtures a year) with a pupil participation rate of 85.5% across the whole school.