Pupils picked for a place on a prestigious coaching academy

Year 11 pupils and sports leaders Chris Gansler, 16, and 15-year-olds Jamie Rogers, Ollie Willetts and Shannon Bacon secured four of just 30 places available on the Youth Sport Trust Lancashire Young Coaches Academy.

They have all been sports leaders with the Stacksteads school since Year 10 and two of the four – Chris and Ollie – are hoping to have a career in sports coaching.

The course involves three full days of training and the first was in Preston at the Sir Tom Finney Sports Centre at UCLAN. The remaining two will be in Darwen.

Ollie said: “We had to write a letter of application and include all our experience, our strengths and what benefit we thought we would get from attending the academy.”

On the first session they had to consider how to adapt sports to make them accessible for people with a disability.

“It was good because we had to think how to make table tennis accessible and it was not something I had thought about before,” said Chris.

“I think being in the academy is a really good opportunity and it will look good on my CV as I want to go to Myerscough to do a BTEC coaching course. I would like to be a cricket coach because I play for Bacup and Rossendale at the moment.

Shannon is a world champion kickboxer and also coaches at Alf Love’s Kickboxing Academy in Stacksteads.

Her voluntary work has added to the hours she has put in since becoming a sports leader.

She said: “Being a sports leader has helped me to get experience of working with younger children, which has helped me with the work I do at the academy.”

Both Shannon and Jamie are hoping to become accountants.

Jamie has notched up 100 hours as a sports leader and also helps to referee football matches.

He said: “Sports Leaders get to take charge and run the sports events at school. I have done so many events, the children who come along know my name and remember me.”

They all agreed the best experience was being at the Lancashire School Games in Blackpool where they helped lead over 2,500 young people.

Rossendale’s School Games Organiser, Nathan Bibby, based at Fearns said: “The 4 of them have been working with me over the past 18 months and are all fantastic leaders. I have seen them grow in confidence and now have no problem speaking in front of large groups of people. With only 30 places available in Lancashire they have done so well to get accepted and we at Fearns are very proud of them. They now have a great opportunity to further develop their leadership skills through the academy and if they impress and make the right contacts it could open up doors for their future careers.”

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