Laura Went, Sports and Education manager from Fleetwood Town Community Sports College offers an end of year education report.
The past 18 months have been challenging in so many ways to so many different people. Within the college, both students and staff have had to adapt from isolating, lockdowns and online learning, I am so proud with how the students have reacted and shown incredible resilience throughout this academic year. Attendance has been exceptional this year even when we were delivering online lessons, and I have to thank my wonderful staff for keeping the students engaged, and also to the students who have remained focused through every aspect of their studies.
In the classroom, our 2nd year students have collectively achieved 21 points higher than their predicted grades. Covid-19 has had the biggest impact on these students as they have only had one term of normal studies on their programme. The fact they have continuously engaged in theory lessons and pushed themselves to achieve above their predicted grades is brilliant and they should be incredibly proud of themselves.
For our 1st years, they had to transition from school to further education with so many restrictions in place, which was always going to be challenging, but as a group they have supported each other and shown great teamwork and resilience. It was so pleasing to see how much they had developed in confidence when they completed their final coaching delivery assessment of the year a few weeks ago.
This year also saw our first cohort on the Foundation Degree in Sports Coaching & Development course, which again had been affected by the pandemic. It was great to see that these students still engaged within their theory lessons, but also maintained as many work placement opportunities as possible within grassroots clubs and within the Sport & Fitness industry. We are really looking forward to welcoming them back onto their second year of the programme in September.
Even though the last academic year has definitely been challenging, there have been so many accomplishments made. The most notable are within the amount of work experience students have gained, they have collectively volunteered over 1700 hours on the Trust’s Sports camps and development sessions, over 500 of hours within the Academy analysis department and supported education staff in numerous activities including refereeing school and college tournaments. Not only did this work experience support their studies but has also led to 7 of our students becoming paid coaches within the Trust.
As we look forward to the next academic year in September, where we will welcome our new 1st year BTEC and 1st Year Foundation Degree cohorts, it is a really exciting time to be part of the Community Sports College. We have recently employed a Girl’s football lead as we aim to develop the female side of the game, enabling equal opportunities for all. We are also looking to develop other alternative provisions within the education programmes including a new foundation degree in Sports Management which will start in September 2022, and exploring many other avenues in the sport and fitness industry.
We aim to be the best provider in the area for students who are interested in Sport, coaching and fitness, to not only develop them educationally and on the pitch, but also to support employability skills such as confidence, teamwork and leadership.
If you are interested in any of our education courses, we still have places for September! Please email education@fleetwoodtownfc.com for more information.