March 22, 2023

Today was our last visit to the primary school. We reached out and contacted the primary school at the beginning of semester two in an attempt to find a better fitting setting for the Grassroots program and a place where all members of the team would be able to be involved. Working with the primary school proved to be the right choice, as week after week, session after session, everyone on the team grew even more passionate about teaching the children. They were more than welcoming to have us be a part of their weekly schedule and provided us with the resources we needed to conduct a successful session every week. Because of this, we wanted to give back to them and show them our gratitude. 

Mr. Jones and the athletics committee reached out to me a couple of days back and asked me whether or not we could donate the mini goals in the gym to Grassroots, and the school no longer needed it. After checking the condition of the mini goals, I knew it would be a fitting gift for the primary school. As a team, we took the goal apart and brought it onto the van. We then assembled it together and gifted it to the school. 

Our session today was cut short due to the weather. However, we still did what we could. We split the group into two groups and conducted one English class. The first half of the teaching was done by Michael, Angus, Nathan, Alex and Narayan. They were responsible for teaching the year 3 students basic English football vocabulary, such as football, pitch, player, goal, offside etc. They used both English and Chinese so that the children could gain a better understanding of the vocabulary. After half of the class, Solomon, Carol, Max and I continued to solidify their understanding of the words and then showed them a short animated video about football. The children all seemed engaged and enjoyed the video. We concluded the lesson by answering some of their questions. 

Although our last session was significantly shorter than the other sessions and heavily affected by the inclement weather meaning we were unable to play any football, it is not an accurate representation of the partnership we’ve had with the primary school since the beginning of this semester. This semester, we were able to share our passion for football, and understanding of the game with the primary school children. On behalf of this year's Grassroots football team, we would like to thank Joe, the founder of China Grassroots, Mr. Pollock, and Evol. Without them, we would not have been able to have such a successful second semester. We’ve all learnt so much from this experience. Thank you. 

March 15, 2023

Today was our fourth visit to the primary school with Carol as the leader since Chrys is not in Hangzhou at the moment. Huge shoutout to Nathan despite being injured, he is still very passionate and decided to go support the team. This time, we taught primary 3 students and our objective of the lesson is to help them master basic English football terms and simply allow them to enjoy the beautiful game, and most importantly bond with the children. In order to achieve that, we first taught them simple football-related wordings and quizzed them afterwards to make sure they fully understood the content. As expected, the intelligent children aced it completely with no difficulties. Then, we headed out the classroom down to the football pitch. Since they are young, we did not want to do intensive drills so instead we splitted them into 4 teams and played mini games on each half court. In order to keep discipline and connect more with the kids, us coaches blended in and played with the kids and all of us had loads of fun, and definitely looking forward to our last visit of the semester. 

February 22, 2023

This week, we went back to the primary school in the school van. We were welcomed by one of the teachers and were taken to a different class than last time. We were given 10 minutes beforehand to prepare ourselves for the English lessons. We were meant to show them a powerpoint which was made beforehand by me, however, we weren’t able to show it due to technical difficulties. However, we had a back up plan which was to repeat the same lesson as last week but with slight changes. We taught English this time in small groups so it was easier for them to remember. We also had treats for them to encourage them to answer more often. The english class went well however, I think that there is a lot of space for improvement such as gaining the student’s attention at times since they can get distracted easily. 

We then started our first session of football with the same class. We led a quick warm-up and then split them into 4 groups. Each group had about 10 students and each group just played a 5-a-side game. There were 2 supervisors per group making sure the game was played correctly. After we ran out of time we got together to take a group picture.

Then another class of year 2 students came for another football session. However, there was only 20 minutes left since they came late. Therefore, we just split them into 2 teams and had a big game of football. Everyone also participated in the game either helping the ball move further along the pitch or just refereeing the game. It was a little stressful since there wasn’t a lot of time. However, at the end there were a lot of smiles on the students’ faces. 

On the way back, we had a small meeting on the bus reflecting on our session this week. Overall, it was another pretty successful links outing. 

February 15, 2023

Today was our first Links trip to our new school in semester 2, and it was my first ever links trip as well as Narayan’s. We were gladly joined by the leader of Grassroots Football, Joe, who helped us organize today’s Links trip. Additionally, Mr. Pollock also came along to have an insight into our links. We left school around noon, and we were able to get there in less than an hour. We were welcomed by the primary headmaster, who took us to our first English session with them. 

The five of us, Chrys, Ava, Solomon, and Max, bravely decided to be the ones teaching them English football terms. There were about 40 students, and they were all very genuine and very eager to learn more English and football. We had printed out some papers beforehand which had football-related words on them with the Chinese translation and a picture to support it. This was projected onto the screen, which made it easy for the children to see; this allowed them to recite the words after us. There were ten words, and at the end of the session, the students could recite some of the words with a bit of aid. This took about 20 minutes, and in the last 10 minutes, we showed them a compilation of football shots where Chrys and Max analyzed parts of the video, which linked back to the English words we learned prior. 

After that, we moved to the football turf at the school campus, where the other half of Narayan, Michael, Isaac, Angus, and Alex were already setting up for the session. We started off with a jog around the pitch to set off the mood as they were all extremely excited to go play football. Ava and I then led a small warm-up where they were in a circle and had them following us whilst we were doing some stretches in the middle. 

After that was done, we split them into two groups. We had two stations in each group; one was a passing drill where we had them in pairs and taught them how to pass correctly. The other station was a shooting drill where they would come up to the goal and practice shooting into it. Afterward, we played a 10v10 game with Chrys and me helping out in the first group. We then switched, and Solomon, Ava, Isaac, Angus, and Max helped out and refereed the second game. 

November 23, 2022

On this Links trip, we worked on engaging with the students and making sure they were aware of the current World Cup. We attempted to broaden and expand their knowledge towards the greater footballing community. We introduced them to the idea of the World Cup, a little bit of the history of the event and how they could possibly be impacted in their daily lives by this event. We told them about possible advertisements they see on TV and the news that correlate to the World Cup. Although most of them were oblivious to it, we still continued to inform them about it, in hopes that they will have a certain awareness of the event.

In terms of the football being played today, it was pretty standard. We started off with a game of Red Light Green Light, in which all the children seemed quite engaged. After that, we introduced a new game, Duck Duck Goose. It was quite difficult to play the game with the children because the children had difficulty figuring out what to do and most of the time, seemed quite lost. However, we helped out and made sure all the children had at least one turn to play. After that, we worked on passing and shooting as usual, but we tried to show more examples and grab the children's attention while doing so. The game we played, in the end, was not what we expected. The children were not engaged and seemed disconnected from what we were doing. 

For our next visit, I want to further work on giving them an understanding regarding the current World Cup that is happening right now. I am also very happy with the way the team worked today. Most of us were engaged and working hard.