7th March-14th March
After our weekend in Gozo, the next week we decided to take it easy, so its was just attending class and training sessions for the week. During our hockey class, we moved on to begin learning the basic dribbling skills. Our lecturer clearly thinks that Becca is a professional due to her hockey shirt, as  he keeps using her as an example. Personally, I reckon I would give her a run for her money anyday! This week also consisted of my group’s first meeting with the primary school we would be carrying out our sports day with. Our lecturer ensured that the three of us were split up, so we were all with two other Maltese students. As I arrived with the other two students, we got to watch a P.E class as we were early. It was great to see a P.E class carried out in Malta and it did enable me to learn a few new activities which I will definitely use when I am coaching again back home. The thing that fascinated me most was the fact that the class (which was being taught to 7 year old’s) was being taught primarily in English, with the students having no difficulties understanding their teacher. Once the session had ended, the three of us went with the head of P.E in the school to her office, where we began discussing our ideas for the sports day. She seemed to know her stuff, although was very open to our ideas. The first priority was to establish the three different age groups and what activities they would be doing. These activities had to include teambuilding as the theme of our sports day was co-operation. We found this easy due to our class in team building. However, I did find myself having to try harder to become involved in the conversation and I could not help but think that this was due to being an international student. The meeting lasted one and a half hours and we scheduled another one for the following Monday at the same. During this week, our business management class was particularly enjoyable as we were discussing how we would organise a sports event with relation to funds, location, sponsorship etc. Our lecturer then enabled us to compare this with how similar events would be organised in Northern Ireland, which raised some interesting contrasts. The main contrast being that sports facilities in Malta were not of the same standard. During our day off this week, we decided to get the long bus trip up past St.Paul’s bay and visit Popeye’s village. Here we got a few good photos with Popeye and Olive and even managed to get a short boat trip around the bay. We were also shown how Maltese crosses were made in the village, which was interesting as we had seen the symbol in so many places, due the country being so religious.