Presentation Secondary School in Kilkenny has been selected to take part in the Volleyball Association of Ireland’s Transition Year Girls Spikeball Leaders Award Programme 2011-12. This is funded by the Irish Sports Council ‘Women in Sport’ project encouraging girls to actively participate in sport.

The programme trains transition year girls to coach Primary School children the sport of Spikeball over a six week period after which a blitz will be organised by the girls allowing all the children to actively use their newly acquired skills.
On Friday 7th of October, Mary Lalor and Graham Torrance, development officers from the Volleyball Association of Ireland, visited Presentation Secondary to train us participating transition year girls with a full day course. Mary and Graham introduced us to the game of Spikeball (an adapted game of volleyball). We learned the rules of Spikeball, how to play the game and most importantly learned how to introduce and coach the game to Primary School students. We learned coaching and refereeing techniques as well as learning about sports reporting and organising a Spikeball Blitz.

The day of coaching was a great success; both enjoyable and informative. Every single one of us participating girls left with a huge knowledge of Spikeball, the rules, how to coach it effectively and also knowledge of the required skill and work it takes to organise a programme such as this one, from planning the training sessions to arranging the Blitz.

The training was split into three sections, firstly we discussed the theory of the programme organisation, the rules, how to deal with problems as they arose and we also volunteered for jobs such as TY Liaisons, Photographers and Public Relations Officers. Secondly Mary and Graham taught us the rules of Spikeball and how to play the game as if we had no experience in the sport. This was very helpful as it showed us the most effective way of teaching Spikeball. Thirdly we split into groups of three and using the skills we had learned during the day we coached the rest of the group as we would the primary school children. This was tough at first as it was everyone’s first time actually coaching but once we got into used to talking in front of a large group of people, we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

There are eighteen transition years involved in the programme and we are coaching in three primary schools in Kilkenny, Presentation Primary School, St. John of God Primary School and Burnchurch National School. We will coach in groups of three and will begin coaching in schools on Monday 17th of October.

As a group, us transition years are very excited about this programme. We feel it is a huge opportunity to give something back to the primary schools many of us attended and to benefit our local community. We are very lucky to have been chosen for the Transition Year Spikeball Girls Leaders Award Programme and we would like to thank Mary and Graham, for their brilliant training and to thank Mr. Barragry and our school for giving us the chance to have this amazing experience.