On the 2nd
of December 2006 NUAAC members Fiona Campbell, Donald McIllwraith, Joe Smithyman, Jamie Quarm, Steven Morrison, Gemma Beaton, Angus MacDougall, Iain Townsend and Stewart Johnson attended a UKA level one coaching course at Lionacleit School, led by Celia Peerless. Celia is an experienced City of Edinburgh AC coach who has coached a variety of disciplines within athletics over the past fifteen years.
The course began with an introduction by Mrs Peerless, who described the course structure and what the aims of the course were. After the introduction, the group took part in a practical session in the games
hall, where they developed their sprint coaching skills. Mrs Peerless used this opportunity to advise the group on how to lead a safe and organised warm-up and drills session.
After a short break it was back to
class for everyone and the group was taught how to coach successfully taking into account performance factors, fitness components and training principles. The second practical session was then held, focusing on
endurance coaching. The importance of instructing, demonstrating and explaining was reinforced in this session.
The next classroom session involved learning about the role of a coach and how to coach children
safely. The games hall was now used for a lesson on coaching involving jumping activities. The group was advised on how to observe and analyse a jumping session effectively.
The final practical session
focused on throwing activities and how to give feedback to the athlete while they are throwing. Specific safety and organisation issues were also dealt with during the session. Before the course finished,
Celia Peerless evaluated the day, telling the group what they could now do as official level 1 coaches.
The NUAAC members that attended gained a wealth of knowledge and experience from the course, whether they needed
the certificate for their CV, hope to help out with the club or simply wanted to learn more about athletics coaching.
The whole of the club would like to thank Celia Peerless for making the effort to travel to the
island to lead the course. Her experience and understanding made her a very effective group leader.
