Easter Training:
Please note that there will be NO TRAINING for any squad during the Easter Break Period as follows:
Good Friday, 19th April
Saturday 20th April*
Easter Sunday, 21st April*
Easter Monday, 22nd April
*Note - Coaches will of course be supporting the Easter Meet at W-S-M.
Closures apply to all sessions, AM and PM where applicable.
Performance and Junior Performance swimmers - please note that there will be NO training at Millfield on Tuesday Evening 23rd April due to pool closure at Millfield.
What it takes to become a Level 2 Coach...
YDSC has a fantastic group of coaches, all of whom are volunteers. They give up a lot of their free time to coach your children under the watchful eye of our paid head coach Ian Angell. Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a coach? Two of our lead coaches, Paul and Michelle, completed their Level 2 course earlier this year and coach Mark is currently undertaking the same training course. Michelle has kindly written an overview of her training which is below.
Fortunately the Level 1 course is far less onerous but just as rewarding, if you are interested in simply helping out pool side or training to become a Level 1 coach please speak to any of the coaches or contact the club secretary.
Hi I’m Michelle; I am Lead Potential Coach and am happy to say that I’ve just passed my Level 2 Coaching course.
The course is quite intensive, but also very interesting for an eager coach like me. It taught me about the importance of training at the correct zones, as well as the importance of skills work.
I met and worked along side other like minded coaches from all over the area. It enabled us to share our experiences, different drills and training practices.
The course involved 7 full days of coaching and learning with another club (in my case Poole swimming club), under the supervision of our Institute Of Swimming (IOS) tutor. These weekends also included homework and the writing of appropriate session plans. We then had 6 weeks of off course study, and homework. This included the writing of weekly training plans (micro cycles) and associated detailed session plans. Self-reflection/analysis of these plans. Analysis of 6 swimmers that I currently coach, following the five Pillars of coaching which includes Physical, Technical, Tactical, Psychological attributes, and Lifestyle. Running and carrying out two test sets and the analysis of the outcomes. We also had to carry out analysis of the four main strokes; starts and turns, as well as answering course based questions. The final portfolio that I submitted amounted to 100 pages!! We then had a final assessment, (one on one with our course tutor) to go through our coursework, as well as have feedback on our coaching whilst at Poole swimming club.
Although I found the course hard, due to the amount of work involved and being able to fit this around two jobs and the volunteering with YDSC, I also found it very rewarding. All the information I’ve learnt has helped me to understand more about the principles of competitive swimming and I am already implementing this into my coaching and will continue to do so in the new season. I would like to thank YDSC for giving me the opportunity to learn these important new skills.
Our amazing sponsors:
