The Year 13 BTEC Sport class are currently working their way through Unit 6: Sports Psychology.  In week one of the term, Jack van Poortvliet (current Leicester Tigers rugby player) kindly offered an hour of his time to be interviewed by the class, during which he gave an interesting insight into life as a young professional athlete and the psychological demands of the sport. It was fascinating to hear about how each player in the squad at Leicester has a responsibility to help create a positive group dynamic and how arousal levels rise and fall during training and competitive games.

It was beneficial for the students to see the link between the psychological skills training theory that they have covered recently, with practical examples offered by Jack when discussing how he manages anxiety, fear of failure and pressure. The Year 13 class will now use this information to help create their own psychological skills training programme.  Thank you to Jack for his time and good luck for the rest of the season. 

The A-level group have also had to opportunity to speak to a sports expert. They have been completing their last unit of study in the course in injury management and prevention and, on Friday 22nd January, Stuart Wardle spoke to the group about his journey into physiotherapy. He is the owner of Recover Physiotherapy and former Norwich City FC 1st team physiotherapist. He spoke to pupils about what he looks for in employees as well as answering a range of pupil led questions relating to football, lockdown, rehabilitation, and injury scenarios that the pupils are working on as part of their end of unit assessment.  The talk was also attended by a number of BTEC and Y12 A level pupils. Thank you to Stuart for giving up his time.