Public Engagement Placement: Session 2

Today my placement group were back at the school delivering another sport psychology workshop for pupils. We focused on imagery today, a topic selected by the pupils, and we had a great session.

After an introduction to the topic, we gave the pupils a series of breakout activities. The one which we all agreed to be the most engaging activity was actually thought of on the spot: we were delivering the session a fraction too quickly and I realised we may need an extra activity to bring us back on schedule. The activity involved pupils considering a scenario within sport where they could vividly imagine using all the senses to build a clear picture in their mind. Going through each sense sequentially, the pupils were tasked with writing down what they were experiencing and relaying that back to the rest of the group. This activity was great as it gave the pupils an opportunity to use imagery while they were in the classroom, but still building a clear image in their minds of a very different scenario. The scenarios selected were vastly varied: some from football, but others from golf, swimming, and water polo. I am confident that the pupils were successful in this task in part due to them wanting to learn more about imagery, using their autonomy to direct the content of the workshop we delivered for them.

We hope that today’s high standard of work from the pupils will continue into our final session with them next week. We will be delivering a session on emotional control, after the pupils expressed struggles relating to controlling frustration on the pitch. We will also use the final session as an opportunity to evaluate the work we have done, and this process will form a vital part of our group portfolio which is an assessed component of the public engagement module. Really enjoying the placement so far!