August 17th, 2021

This miniature blog post is the fifth in my CAS series called Mini Blogs. In this little series, I will write some small blogs about CAS-related activities that I have completed, focusing mainly on only one learning outcome. The other learning outcomes related to each blog post will be briefly talked about at the end, with a short sentence about how that learning outcome was addressed with each activity.

LO2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process A new challenge may be an unfamiliar experience or an extension of an existing one. The newly acquired or developed skills may be shown through experiences that the student has not previously undertaken or through increased expertise in an established area.

I am a football (soccer) coach at an organization called TAFA (which is a football club in Sri Lanka). When I was around 8 years old; I played football as a student in this Academy. Then; back in November of 2019 (when I was in 10th grade); a TAFA coach came to watch one of our school’s sessions, and she asked me if I wanted to join TAFA again as a player (which I did very happily). I continued playing for TAFA until September of 2020 (excluding our 3-month lockdown due to COVID). In September; I started to help out the TAFA coaches; getting balls and setting up cones; etc. I did this for a long time until Coach Eddie formally asked me to intern as a coach at the beginning of October of 2020. From then until May 2021, I interned as a coach; learning as I went. Earlier on; I took two courses called “Mental Health in Scottish Football E-Learning Course”, as well as “Children’s Wellbeing in Scottish Football E-Learning”. These courses were very helpful and they helped me learn about keeping children safe in football coaching, as well as taking care of mental health, and keeping a safe football environment.

Then, in May 2021, I signed up for a course called “Introduction to Coaching (1.1)”, which is the first step I took towards being a more qualified coach. This was a 2-session course, which happened over the course of two days. Each individual session was 2:15mins long, and I learned lots of different drills and it really helped me develop my coaching skills; learning how to support kids; dealing with parents; how to run match day, and how to add creativity into the session. The creativity aspect was the main focus of this course. This was a huge challenge for me; as I had never done any online course before; especially one with strangers from overseas. I am not always the most social of people; and having to engage in a course; speaking in front of a lot of people I don’t know was very intimidating for me. I was by far the youngest coach on the course, I was one of the only few females on the course, and I was one of the only people in a country other than Scotland.

This was a huge challenge for me; as it took a lot of confidence and bravery for me to speak out in breakout rooms with adults I don’t know to share my opinion; and it was also very challenging for me to speak up and contribute my opinion to the discussion. However; I did speak out a bit, and in the breakout rooms with 5 people, we discussed our opinions on whichever questions the administrators had asked us to discuss. There are so many different skills and benefits I got from these challenges I overcame. I became more confident in myself as a coach, I learned so much new information about how to coach, and how to improve my coaching. I learned a lot about different people around the world and I discovered new coaching techniques and styles from talking to much more experienced coaches in different countries. I also developed my confidence and developed social skills in a new scenario I hadn’t been in before.

Then, in August, I signed up for the next coaching course; to get my level 1.2 Coaching Certificate. I signed up for a 3-day session; on the 10th, 11th and 17th of August. On each day, there was a 3-hour zoom call. This course also included some group work; where between the 2nd and 3rd session, we were put into groups of 3, and we had to plan a specific football (soccer) session. For my group; our job was to a “traditional” coaching set up (with a skill practice, a game-realted practice, and a conditioned game at the end), with regards to passing. My specific role in this group was to make the 

Other Learning Outcomes (Shortened):

LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth Students are able to see themselves as individuals with various abilities and skills, of which some are more developed than others.

LO3 Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience Students can articulate the stages from conceiving an idea to executing a plan for a CAS experience or series of CAS experiences. This may be accomplished in collaboration with other participants. Students may show their knowledge and awareness by building on a previous experience, or by launching a new idea or process.

LO4 Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences Students demonstrate regular involvement and active engagement in CAS.

LO5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively Students are able to identify, demonstrate and critically discuss the benefits and challenges of collaboration gained through CAS experiences.