On Saturday 24 September Triathlon England Skills School in the North East started in Hexham, Northumberland. The action packed day worked on agility, transition skills, training principles and open water skills.
Led by Phil Jameson (North East Skills School Lead), 8 volunteer coaches from both the North East and North West started the day with a workshop to help develop and challenge them using the principles of Skills School. The workshop provided a unique opportunity for the coaches to come together and work in a supportive team to produce creative and challenging sessions through guided discovery.
In the afternoon the young athletes were welcomed and were soon into Agility Course Pictionary led by Robert Baddeley (Alnwick Triathlon Club). Athletes were allowed to explore their creative minds. After that with both mind and body warmed up it progressed into multi directional running and key fundamental movements led by Lucy Courtney (One Life Racing). Next the attention focused on transition skills led by David Holden (Castle Tri Club) in which athletes were allowed to choose some of the constraints to challenge the session further. The activity finished with a game of ‘Cat and Mouse’ under the watchful eye of Tim Wylie (One Life Racing).
After an athlete break in the chill out area which included some games such as connect 4, table football, hula hoop and quizzes the athletes were tasked with coming up with a training activity for a component of fitness and everyone witnessed some great athlete engagement and understanding.
The final activities of the day saw athletes move to the pool for an open water skills session. Leading the first game in which the focus was athlete awareness in the water Stuart Robinson (Arragons Tri Club) and Jo Lally (One Life Racing). This progressed to open water turns and navigation led by Neil Smith (Darlington Triathlon Club). Athletes were given options of how to learn, they could keep practicing, get out to observer in the athlete observation area, ask a coach or even go to the visual area which had videos of the skills. To complete the day off Kath Smith (Carlisle Triathlon Club) delivered a great game focusing on all the open water skills developed throughout the session.
Skills School is the first Coach Development Programme from British Triathlon specifically aimed at coaches working with children. Using the aims of Skills School the coaches delivered fun, creative and challenging sessions for the young athletes, aged 10-16 years.
Triathlon England would like to thank all of the athletes who attended and we look forward to seeing you all again. We would also like to thank the coaching team who made the day a successful one with their contributions.
The next session is at Alnwick on Sunday 23 October followed by Darlington on Saturday 26 November.
