THIS IS A
"COACH AND PLAY" AS
WELL AS A "LEARN TO PLAY"
PROJECT
This placement combines coaching in a variety of sports with gaining valuable
work experience in a well set-up and organized Sports School. The experience you gain
on this project will be an excellent entry into your CV, making you stand out in
the crowd of job seekers.
This is a unique opportunity to coach in a Sports School
full time
for the underprivileged community. You will be assisting in the
management and running of the school, coaching the children and possibly
playing for various teams based at the school.
The school is dedicated to its development
programme,
which was implemented to help the underprivileged children in the
community.
Located in the beautiful town of Knysna along the garden Route, you will
have the opportunity to coach and play a variety of sports.
You may be able to coach a variety of sports
including: Archery, Bowls, Cricket, Cycling, Football, Golf, Hockey, Squash
and Tennis.
You can also get involved in a number of different roles:
The Sports School is situated in a beautiful location, overlooking the
Knysna Lagoon. Being out in the fresh air and playing sports
with such panoramic views is enjoyable, uplifting and quite unique! The
School has excellent facilities, including a pavilion, cricket and
hockey ground.
The School was established in 1992 as a sports promotional tool for the previously disadvantaged
community. The school's motto is ‘To Play for the sake of the game’.
The sports school provides term-time coaching to boys and girls in the
area of Knysna and works closely with the children from the
underprivileged community.
As well as coaching, the school also organises a number of sports
events which brings visiting teams to Knysna to play against local
teams. These occasions are always lots of fun, ‘teaming’ with good,
strong competitive spirit!
The mission statement of the sports school is:
“The promotion of sportsmanship, fellowship and self-respect among
children in Knysna through the medium of a healthy sporting ethos and
environment, and the development of their skills in their chosen sport.”
ABOUT YOUR WORK
AND COACHING
You may have the opportunity to get involved in a number of different
activities during the day.
Apart from coaching, there are also aspects of sports administration and
management, which the school needs assistance in.
Monthly sports festivals at the Sports School - schools from
around the country come to take part in these festivals!
Matches between schools and clubs.
Matches for overseas touring sports teams.
Sports facility maintenance
General paperwork and administration
"Working at the sports school was a great way for me to
learn how to coach in a professional environment and improving my coaching
techniques as the coaches at the school really helped me and I in turn could
help the children. The sports school is an excellent placement for those who
want to really get stuck into sports full time coaching whilst learning new
coaching techniques and playing sport." William Dawson
Sports Development Programme
The Sports School has a well established sports development programme
which aims to allow children from the surrounding townships to come to
the facility and receive free coaching. They also have children from
more affluent backgrounds attending the Sports School so there is a
wonderful interaction and benefits for both groups
There are a number of qualified
coaches at the school who you will be assisting, so if you're
not a very experienced coach, or you lack confidence in your coaching skills,
you can learn and develop your own abilities by working alongside these coaches.
You can choose to coach one or more different sports and you can do a
placement for any length of time, from two weeks upwards.
The sports are divided into seasons as follows:
Summer (between
October and April, with a long break in the middle from 1st December to
15th January) Archery, Bowls Cricket, Cycling, Golf and Tennis
Winter (April
10th to 22nd September) Archery, Bowls, Cycling, Football, Golf, Hockey, Squash and Tennis
During the start of the school year (February & March) you will be going
into the township schools with the coaches to do talent spotting to
identify children who have talent in a particular sport. These children
are then encouraged to come to the sports school to receive coaching.
PLAYING SPORTS
As well as coaching sports, you may also have the chance to train (and
possibly play) for the sports schools senior/men’s teams, if you're
considered good enough.
The sports school has teams in a number of sports.
If you would like to compete and train in a specific sport, the dates
for the different sports sessions are as follows:
Bowls: All year round
Cricket: January – mid March,
and September - mid November
Tennis:
April – end of May
Squash:
April – mid September
This placement would suit someone who has a keen interest, not only
coaching sports, but getting involved with the sports administration and
management role as well. It is open to anyone who has, or intends to
study sports.
This is a very professional and intense sports placement where you can
really benefit by learning sports administration, management and
coaching. At the same time you will also be providing a benefit to the
poorer community through the sports development programme.
FREE COACHING
MANUALS AND SUBSCRIPTION TO A COACHING WEBSITE
As a volunteer sports coach with Travellers, you have access to a large
number of free coaching manuals for each sport - these manuals
have been produced in-house by our Sports Manager. These manuals are
very useful and will help you to plan coaching sessions for your
students.
As well as
coaching manuals you also have a year’s free subscription to a Coaching
website.
With this membership (which normally comes with a price tag of £39.99),
you automatically become a member of the International Coaches
Association (ICA) and join a community of coaches from over 65
countries
Accommodation and Living in Knysna
You will
more than likely live in one of our
volunteer houses with other Travellers
volunteers. You will either have your own room or will share a room with one or
more other Travellers volunteers. It will depend on how many people are there at
the same time that you are.
These are comfortable
houses with good facilities and
most have a beautiful view of Knysna Lagoon. You will
be provided with a food budget and will need to prepare and cook your own meals.
There are several good, inexpensive
steak houses and lots of good Chinese, Italian and other ethnic restaurants. With local beer
costing only 50p and coca cola 30p a good night out is cheap
(at time of writing). With the current favourable exchange
rate of about 13 Rands (R13) to the pound, your
spending money goes a long way! (Prices given are correct at time of writing,
but please check before departure.)
"Thank you so much for all the time and effort you have put into making this a
fantastic stay for us.
We will never forget this experience!" Cat
Dunlop and Liz Lunn
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS 2008 IN SOUTH AFRICA:
Dates for the 2008 school terms (semesters) are given below.
1st Term
16 January to 20 March
2nd Term
14 April to 27 June
3rd Term
14 July to 26 September
4th Term
6 October to 5 December
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS 2009:
Dates for the 2009 school terms (semesters) are given below.
1st Term
21 January to 3 April
2nd Term
15 April to 26 June
3rd Term
20 July to 23 September
4th Term 1
5 October to 11 December
Please note: Volunteers can't coach sports
during the school holidays, instead you will be
involved in running the sports festivals for the Sports School.
DISCOVER SOUTH AFRICA: To enhance your cultural experience and to take advantage of exploring other
regions of this vast, beautiful country, you can combine this project with
many of our other projects - please see our
prices page for the different
combinations you can do.
One of the Volunteer houses in Knysna
Monkeys in the garden of one of the
volunteer houses in Knysna
TRAVEL:
You have the option to arrange your
own flights or we can assist you with your flight arrangements. If you would
like us to do this for you, we will liaise with you regarding available flights
and dates to suit you. All arrangements for your flight bookings/payments will
be fulfilled for you by Murray Rogers Travel Ltd., ATOL No. 6856. (Read
more about Murray Rogers Travel Ltd.) Where possible, we arrange for two or
more people to travel on the same flight and we will let you have the names and
telephone numbers of other volunteers on your flight, so that you can chat to
each other or even meet up before leaving for your placement.
Where possible, all flights we arrange for you have changeable return tickets
because many of our volunteers choose to extend their stay once they are in
their destination country. Changeable return tickets enable you to do so, within
the limits of your visa and the level of your air ticket, of course. If you
choose to book your own flights, you should endeavour to get a changeable
ticket. We meet you at the airport regardless of whether you make your own
travel arrangements or not.
We can also arrange your flight
dates to give you additional time at the end of your project for travelling
around and sightseeing - this is a fascinating and wondrous country!
VISAS:. In countries where
visas or immigration documents are required, we'll send you all the necessary
forms and information and make the process very easy for you.
To
read about the extensiveSupport & Backup
we provide in our countries,
please
click
here.
PRICES:
To see the Prices of this project and all
our other projects in South Africa, please
click here
Prices
include
Food & accommodation while on your project,
unless otherwise stated,
2 T-shirts, if required
for your project
All support and backup
during your programme
Meeting you at the
nearest airport, where appropriate, but exclude international travel.
.
+44 01903 502595
