Welcome to our South African "TOTAL SPORTS" PROJECT
This is a wonderful opportunity to coach
full time
your favourite sports in Knysna, one of South Africa’s most beautiful
and loved towns, nestled amongst the mystical forests and beaches of the
tranquil Garden Route.
This project is quite unique in that you can coach
full time
many types of sports, including Rugby, Football, cricket, Biathlon… and
many more! There are currently 11 different sports available to coach.
You don't need any qualifications to do this project, just knowledge of
sports and lots of enthusiasm.
If you would like to get involved in sports management in a more professional
role, then our Pro Sports Work Experience placement
may suit you better. This placement is excellent experience if you want to pursue
a career in sports.
We work with two schools in picturesque Knysna. One of them is right in the
middle of the bustling town, and the other situated up on a hilltop with amazing
views of the lagoon and famous Knysna Heads. These are the more privileged
schools in the area, offering excellent facilities and a wide range of sports to
their students.
They do, however, have a lack of sports coaches due to the school having to
cope with the number of children they accommodate. This is where YOU come in…
and really make a difference.
Both schools offer you the opportunity to coach full-time alongside the
existing sports teacher at the school.
Types of Sports Available to Coach: As a Travellers sports coach in Knysna, you may find yourself
involved in any number of sports. You may be able to coach any one, or more, of
the sports listed below, subject to availability and seasons:
Athletics
Biathlon
Cricket
Cross Country
Football
Gymnastics
Hockey
Netball
Swimming
Tennis
Waterpolo
Depending on your skills and interests, we will endeavor to
place you at the school that will best benefit from your experience and that you
will best benefit from in terms of placement satisfaction.
YOUR WORK: As an assistant you are not expected to take the class yourself, but you will be
taking groups of children under supervision of the sport teacher in charge. This
has proven to be a huge benefit to the teacher and allows the groups to be more
closely monitored in terms of their progress.
You may end up coaching children from a variety of different ages 6 and 13 years
old, but if you wish to coach older children, then we may be able to arrange it
for you.
Coaching times are usually from about 10am till 2pm. From 2pm till 5pm there is
also an opportunity to assist in coaching after-school sports teams.
Lessons are around 30 – 45 minutes long and you may be expected to get involved
in a variety of the different sports offered by the school.
The sports you may get involved in obviously depend on the season you plan to do
your placement in and these are divided into the school terms listed below:
Term 2 & 3 - Winter (April - September)
Cross Country, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Netball, Rugby and Tennis.
If you are keen to play sports as well, then you may have the opportunity to
get involved in a social sport scene. The parents often come together to form a
team and play the children at the school in cricket or other sports, which is
LOTS of fun.
SCHOOL TERMS:
Dates for the
2008
school terms (semesters) are given below.
1st Term 9th January to 20th March
2nd Term 14th April to 20th June
3rd Term 14th July to 26th September
4th Term 6th October to 5th December
Dates for the
2009
school terms (semesters) are given below.
1st Term 21st January to 3rd April
2nd Term 15th April to 26th June
3rd Term 20th July to 23rd September
4th Term 5th October to 11th December
Please note:
Term dates for some of the school differ slightly, depending on whether they are
government or privately run. For exact dates of the specific project you choose,
please speak to your Project Co-ordinator when applying.
Coaching is unfortunately not available during school holidays, so if you're
planning to participate in a placement, please take the above school term dates
into account when planning the timing of your project. On the other hand, if a
holiday falls during your proposed placement, you could use this time to do any
independent traveling and sightseeing.
If you would like to get involved in sports management in a more professional
role, then our Pro Sports Work Experience placement
may suit you better. This placement is excellent experience if you want to pursue
a career in sports.
FREE
COACHING MANUALS AND SUBSCRIPTION TO COACHING WEBSITE
As a volunteer sports coach with Travellers,
we provide you with a large number of coaching manuals for your placement. We
also
have arranged for you to get 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
The ICA is rapidly growing into one of the largest coaching organizations in the
world. This subscription will allow you access to over 4,000 pages of the best
interactive, online soccer and football coaching information.
Although they deal mainly with soccer/football, the coaching principles are the
same for all sports and will be helpful for you in teaching any sport.
This
excellent
resource should hopefully be able to give you a few tips that will benefit both
you and the children that you’ll be coaching, and enable you to gain the maximum
enjoyment from your placement.
Knysna: You will more than likely live in one of our homely volunteer houses
with other Travellers volunteers
One of the houses is situated in town and closer to the estuary
(which is handy for short walks into town), and the other higher up above the
town with beautiful views of Knysna Lagoon.
Both houses are very
comfortable with great facilities. You may either have your own room or will share a room with one
or more other volunteers. This depends on how many people are on placement at
the time of yours.
** Please note that occasionally the houses that we use may change owing to
availability, so the facilities you can expect may change accordingly.
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 all over South Africa. Seafood, of course,
is often fresh and plentiful.
With the current favourable exchange rate of
about 14
Rand (R14)
to the pound, your spending money goes quite a long way!
(Prices and exchange rates are current at time writing, but please check rates
regularly because they do fluctuate.) To give you an idea of costs, a local beer will set you back around 70p and coca
cola, roughly 30p (at time of writing), so you really can afford to spoil
yourself with a good night from time to time.
On Arrival, you will be welcomed by our South African Manager who will take you
to your accommodation and introduce you to everyone.
During your first few days you'll be given an induction so that you can learn
about the country and its culture, as well as other useful information, like how
to use the transport system, banks, safety issues, tipping, and lots more.
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
