13th june - An early 6am wake up and 710am leave; me and david made the commute down south towards the school. Arriving early I had a quick tour of the school facilities; which incomparison to even the private schools of cheltenham is no match!! The sport facilities they have here are incredible; ranging from two huge sports halls both indoors and out, a two-story gym facility (including all the pieces of machinery you could think of), a large outdoor heated swimming pool, large oval pitches (for footie, rugby and soccer it seems).
Today I mainly had the role of assistant coaching and helping out with any lessons that required me. This included managing some very excitable year 4's (8/9 years old) in a mini soccer game. I met a guy called Neil who has strong links to olympic and national hockey coaching/play who suggested i should work with both the year 9 and 10 "A" (firsts teams) with both training and fixtures; which involve both tuesday and wednesday for training and friday and saturdays for fixtures. The PE staff here are very friendly and just from walking around the school with Tom; sport is a big part in the schools agenda - as he was constantly stopped and asked about last weekends fixtures. The boys that attend the school each have to do sport lessons throughout their school career. For example year 7s (11 year olds) have a 2 week rota of four lessons of praticals and 1 lesson on health. The teaching system here in Australia is very different; there are no mid exams or gcses etc, it is simply an exam at the end of year 11.
I am looking forward to the week ahead and starting some hockey coaching. Rosie-may has adopted me as her older sister and I even received one of her books for me to read whilst I am staying with her, wrapped up in green paper (as she wanted to wrap it in my favourite colour). Plans for the week are mainly coaching in the school and Tom has invited me to the local pub this friday with the rest of the PE staff. This coming weekend i hope to do some exploring around Perth and hopefully shall get some pictures up here for you to all get jealous over!! Having a great time and missing everyone back home. lots of love xxxxx
It sounds like you are going to be really busy - enjoy putting all your skills to good use. I gave up trying to understand Aussie Rules, I'll let you explain them - apparently it's one of the fastest growing sports in the UK??
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