Sports Leadership

Amber Valley SSP works hard to ensure every student in Amber Valley has access to a variety of sports leadership opportunities throughout each academic year

Leadership Academy:

Amber Valley SSP Leadership Academy is open to students attending any of the eight Amber Valley secondary schools. As part of the academy pupils gain access to a wide range of opportunities in sports leadership ranging from traning courses to competition support through to having the chance to attend regional and national conferences. To become a member of the Amber Valley Leadership Academy all you have to do is book onto one of the below events by contacting rshaw@avssp.co.uk

Training workshops:

Through our links with the secondary schools across the borough we are able to offer a full day of sports leadership training to each school. These training days are split into three 2 hour workshops in Disability Sport, Fundamentals of Physical Activitity and Invasion Games and finish with a planning session to allow students to put together a blue-print for what they are going to do within their own school to encourage more students to take part in physical activity and sport.

The training days themselves are usually delivered on an inset day of the schools choosing and are FREE of charge for students. In 2017/18 over 200 students attending the training days allowing us to expand our leadership academy significantly

Gold Leaders:

As a follow up from the training workshops we run for students we encourage students to work towards putting on a number of events/clubs for students within their school. This task can take the form of a weekly club, a one off large event or a series of smaller competitions, whichever suits both the students and the school most. This enables those students who take up the challenge the opportunity to liaise with schools staff and students, plan the event, work out staffing/costing requirements, deliver the event itself and evaluate it, all with the support of SSP staff along the way.

Those students who work hard to succeed in this task are awarded the title of Amber Valley Gold Leaders and also act as the link between the school and the SSP. These students will also be the first to be considered when we are looking to invite students to conferences, regional competitions and award ceremonies

Employability:

Amber Valley School Sport Partnership are always keen to help young people develop themselves and their employability skills, allowing them to be more likely to be successful in the competitive job market.

To support this we offer a twilight employability workshop open to all members of the Leadership Academy. This session covers elements such as CV designing, personal statement writing, interview preperation and technique as well as tips on presentation skills, job/course searching and an in depth look at what employers are looking for.

Sports Coaching:

As a large part of our workload we consider ourselves to be in an excellent place to offer support and advice on sports coaching skills. This twilight workshop will offer ideas on warm up/cool down activities relevant to various sports, coaching session structure and planning, communication styles and coaching methodology all designed to improve the quality and confidence in your coaching. Whether this be improving students ability to speak infront of large groups or simply improving the flow of a session this workshop can be tailored to those attending in order to provide the most relevant experience

Event support:

Throughout the year AVSSP delivers a huge variety of events across numerous different sports across Amber Valley. We cannot do this without the support of our Leadership Academy students who will be responsible for a whole host of roles at each event from officiating games, coaching teams, scorekeeping, activity leading and many more. These events are our most regular opportunity for young people to get involved in sports leadership and help develop skills such as problem solving, communication, leadership, organisation and more all in an enjoyable sporting environment.

Events take place across SEN and mainstream sports and are spread evenly across the borough giving students at any school the opportunity to attend

Work Experience:

For those students who especially enjoy their time spent volunteering with us and have a passion for sport and the development of young people we offer four work experience placements per secondary school and Y10 and 2 places per school at Y12. These placements are open to any student within the leadership academy to apply for via rshaw@avssp.co.uk

During the work experience week students will get a varied experience of sport development and coaching, whether this be supporting our coaching team delivering PE lessons and extra curricular clubs in primary schools or being given key roles in the running of school sport competiton and events each student who joins us on work experience will have the opportunity to work hard and gain a real idea of what the industry is all about while enjoying themselves in the process!

Wider Links:

Through our links with partner organisations both in Amber Valley and across the county the SSP has the ability to offer access to a number of exciting opporunities. These can include advance access to courses provided by other organisations such as first aid, sports coaching, safeguarding etc. Attendance at regional or national competitions and conferences allowing students to meet new people and develop their skills and experience in communication and sports leadership. Access to programmes within National Governing Bodies of Sport as well as County wide development programmes, for example over the last year one member of our Leadership Academy has gained a place on the Football Association Young Leader Management Team while two others have become members of the Derbyshire Young Coach Academy, as well as this each year we take a number of Gold Leaders out of school to assist at the Derbyshire School Games event, an event which see’s hundreds of competitors across 11 county finals in sports ranging from football to athletics

For more information about the Leadership opportunities available please contact adam@avssp.co.uk