Badminton After School Activity Update 2

This Monday was the last session for this block’s after school badminton. It has been a very exciting and meaningful time for me, and I got to improve my skills, specially through scrimmage matches with Uthpala and Uvin. These sessions were also valuable because I was able to notice what aspects of badminton skills that had dropped from my previous levels, and what stayed the same and so on. I realized that my drop shot skill and my stamina have dropped, and they’re the areas for growth in the future, whereas skills such as smashing, overhead clear shot etc were relatively the same. My biggest strength that I think was the strongest was the net play, and I feel that I’ve improved that even further with the practices. Overall, these sessions were very good opportunities for me to be aware of my strengths, what I need to improve, as well as to develop skills further to the next level.

In terms of collaboration, I believe that I have sufficiently shown that through sharing of courts with other students (it would be unethical not to share courts with other students and leave them out) and playing doubles, which requires a lot of collaboration. Although I was unable to attend all the sessions, I’ve shown my commitment and perseverance by attending majority of the sessions, which I think is an achievement considering the amount of school work what I had this semester. And most of all, I’ve certainly enjoyed playing badminton! I was able to achieve all the goals that were set at the beginning, and this is another aspect to be proud of!

If there is badminton after school activity in the next block, and I can find time to attend all the sessions, I’m more than willing to try again and play badminton!

 

Badminton After School Activity Update

The sessions have been very exciting for the past couple of weeks. Every time, I have been playing together with Uthpala from my grade and Uvin from grade 11. Since I haven’t had a chance to play badminton for a while, my skills have dropped, but now that I’m playing, I am noticing my improvements in badminton. At times, I also play with smaller children and teach them some fundamental skills, such as a proper way of serving, overhead clear shots and so on. This is an area that I’m good at (teaching the fundamentals) because last year I was doing a similar things in this activity, and I hope to do this until the end of this block, so that the smaller children can also gain something, rather than just enjoying.

In terms of commitment and perseverance, I feel that I’m doing a fine job in this area. So far, I have missed only 1 session, and I have been able to show my perseverance and commitment in the “outside of school” activity despite the amount of school work there is to work on. I am also collaborating with others, specially those whom I don’t know very much, when I play doubles in the game. 

There are two more sessions left before this block’s activity ends, and I hope to attend both sessions and enjoy and gain something out of this as much as I can!

Badminton After School Activity

Badminton is one of the after school activities for the second block of ASA, and I’ve decided to take part in this activity as part of my Action in CAS. This activity is organized by Ms. Lenk and it goes on until December. This takes place every Monday from 2:40 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The goals which I’ve set are:

• To increase the awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
• To develop new and current skills
• To collaborate with others
• To show perseverance and commitment by attending every session
• To enjoy!

The first session was on the 31st of October, but due to my sickness, I was unable to attend that session. Therefore my first session will be on the 7th of November.

Block 3 After School Activity Badminton Last Week

This Monday the 21st was the last week of the Block 3 after school activity badminton. Unlike last semester’s after school activity badminton, this time we focused a lot more on playing badminton for enjoyments, mostly because the participants were from lower grades and many of them wished to play for the fun of it and relaxation, without learning much about badminton.

Although we taught them the fundamentals of badminton, such as the singles and doubles court, some easy footwork, serving etc, I personally thought that we should have taught them more things, such as lobbing, drop shot and so on. It raised some questions in my mind, such as “is it ethical to just let them play without knowing the proper rules?“, “will letting them play without knowing the rules going to help them when they play badminton again?” and so on. For me, this was a good chance to think about the ethical implications of the actions and decisions. Although majority just wanted to play, I still think that we could have at least taught them some skills of badminton.

Through this after school badminton, I’ve covered some of the criteria. I’ve worked collaboratively with Ms. Lockwood and Rasmus to plan and initiate what we were going to do for each week. Although we didn’t teach the participants much, planning was still necessary and this was the key to running this activity smoothly without a confusion. I’ve shown commitment by attending this activity every week (except for 1 time when I had to go home early) and I’ve also shown my perseverance by dealing with my personal problem, that is, I should have taught them more. This led me to considering the ethical implications of the actions and decisions, as mentioned earlier.

Going back to the initial goals, they were;

• To help the students develop their badminton skills (if they want to learn, that is)
• To develop my badminton skills while also teaching the students
• To develop a leadership
• To further develop my teaching of badminton (this is the area for growth)
• To plan and initiate what we’ll do every week
• To work collaboratively with Rasmus, Ms. Lockwood and everybody else
• To show perseverance and commitment in this activity.

It was pretty hard for me to develop my badminton skills because the students I’ve played with were from lower grades and as they didn’t have much skills, it was unethical to play and keep smashing. Therefore this goal wasn’t achieved. Developing the leadership was something I’ve built and also developed. This also came from being the caption of the badminton team training. (accomplishments of other goals have been mentioned earlier).

Overall, this block’s after school activity badminton has been a quite different and new experience for me. Although it didn’t fully run as I’d expected to, I believe that sometimes people need to be flexible and this is something I’ve learned from leading this activity. I hope to lead this activity in the future if I get a chance again 🙂

Block 3 After School Activity Badminton Week 4

This week was the 4th week of after school badminton. Unlike last semester, we have many students from the lower grades and they don’t seem to want to learn much, so we’re decided that we’re going to just show them the very basics of badminton, such as the courts in singles and doubles, the positions, the movements on the court etc.

This week, I showed them the court used in singles and doubles as well as the serving. After completing this task, I let everybody play freely.

Next week, I and Rasmus will teach them the positions and movements on the court.

Block 3 After School Activity Badminton

After school badminton has started this week. In this block, I’m no longer leading the activity and I was planning to just enjoy playing badminton, however, it looks like I’m to be the vice-leader. Initially Rasmus was to be the leader and Skylor to be the vice-leader, but since Skylor couldn’t be part of this activity due to the involvement in the Secondary production, Rasmus has asked me to be the vice-leader. So once again, I’m going to be taking some leadership in organizing this activity with Rasmus and Ms. Lockwood, who’s the supervisor.

Since it was the first meeting, all we did was just play around with the new people. Next week, Rasmus and I’ll ask the students if they want to learn badminton or they just want to play for the fun of it. It’s  very important to know this because some students may lose an interest otherwise.

The goals which I hope to achieve in this after school badminton are;

• To help the students develop their badminton skills (if they want to learn, that is)
• To develop my badminton skills while also teaching the students
• To develop a leadership
• To further develop my teaching of badminton (this is the area for growth)
• To plan and initiate what we’ll do every week
• To work collaboratively with Rasmus, Ms. Lockwood and everybody else
• To show perseverance and commitment in this activity.

After School Badminton: Sixth Week!

This monday (6th of December) was the sixth week of the after school badminton. We’ve finished the doubles tournament in the first 10 minutes, and moved onto the singles tournament.

For the singles tournament, we decided to split the people into 2 groups, then play against everybody in each group and the top winner from each group will play the final to decide the champion. There are still some more matches to be played before the final, but we will finish this singles tournament next week, which is the last week of this after school activity.

After School Badminton: Fifth Week!

This monday (29th of November) was the fifth week of the after school badminton. As we’d planned, we played doubles tournament. Because some people didn’t turn up, we had to adjust the pairs little but other than that, everything worked smoothly. We can definitely finish this doubles tournament in the next week and once this is finished, we’re planning to do the singles tournament.

As this activity is coming towards the end, I’d like to recall some of the goals which I’ve set for this activity. They were:

• plan and initiate activities
• work collaboratively with others
• undertake new challenges
• show perseverance and commitment in the activity
• develop a new skill

I believe that by now, I’ve already achieved the criteria shown above. For the first criterion, I’ve clearly set a plan for what to do for each week and took the initiative in teaching the students. I achieved this with the help from Mr. De Silva and Mo and by doing this, I’ve achieved the second criterion, which is working collaboratively with others. For the third criterion, this whole idea of teaching people something was a new challenge to me and by doing this, I’ve clearly covered this as well. I’ve also achieved the fourth criterion. I was always in the gym first, waiting for others to arrive and taking the attendance. At times, some students were not listening to our instructions but I managed to deal with this problem. And I’ve achieved the last one, which is developing a new skill.  After several times, I certainly felt that I got better at teaching and learned what is the best way to teach badminton. One other criterion, which I didn’t state in the goal, but achieved was increasing the awareness of my strength and areas for growth. From leading this activity, I thought that my strength was keeping the students under a control, and planning and initiating the activity. However, I believe that these areas can still be strengthened as I get more chance to initiate these kind of activities.

There are 2 more weeks left until the end of this activity and I’m fully committed to give all my effort in order to make this an enjoyable activity for the students who are taking part.

After School Badminton: Fourth Week!

This monday (22nd of November) was the fourth week of the after school badminton. As usual, we split into 2 groups and taught them fundamental techniques of badminton.

As I’d planned, I taught my group how to hit a forehand drop shot. First of all, I showed them how to hit a forehand drop shot. This is perhaps one of the most difficult technique out of serving, forehand overhead clear and forehand drop shot, so I showed many times so that everybody can see how to hit it. After that, I put then into pairs to practice. As I’d imagined, nobody could hit it properly and I showed them demonstrations several times with some advice.  After about 20 minutes of this practice, some of them were starting to get something out of it and at the end, most of them were somehow able to hit it (not proper one). However, I believe they need more practice to be able to hit forehand drop shot properly because it requires more time and training compared to forehand overhead clear or serving.

Since there’s only 3 weeks left till the end of block two, Mo and I’ve decided to do a small tournament. This will start from next week and it will be a doubles tournament. If there’s still some time after this tournament ends, we will also do a singles tournament as well.

Stretching before playing badminton

Showing how to hit a forehand drop shot

After School Badminton: Third Week!

This monday (15th of November) was the third week of the after school badminton. Mo was unable to turn up, so Mr. De Silva took some group of students and I took the rest of the students.

As I’d planned, I taught them how to hit a forehand overhead clear shot. First, I showed them some demonstrations and gave some tips to successfully do this technique. After that I put them into pairs and let them practice. At first, many of them had difficulties in hitting the shuttle high and long but as they practiced and I gave more advice, they showed an improvement and most of them were able to hit it properly at the end.

After about 15 to 20 minutes of this practice, I let them play freely until 3:45 p.m.

Next week, I’m planning to teach them the forehand drop shot, as this is another good technique to be able to use and is an effective way in manipulating and giving a pressure to an opponent. Again, I’ll spend about 15-20 minutes teaching and letting them practice this technique and after that, I’ll let them play on their own.