Ulster Sports Academy

For Students - Placement Information

Placement forms and a list of placement opportunities will be available via Blackboard : Course Support Areas - Ulster Sports Academy.

Student View - Lyn Brown, Final Year Student 2010.

Placement- Ballyclare High School

I chose to spend a year as a student PE teacher in a large grammar school in the Newtownabbey area. As I want to continue a career in Physical Education I felt this year was the best route for me. My placement year has given me an invaluable insight into the PE teaching profession and I now have a greater understanding of what is involved in the profession.
Being given the chance to work closely and to teach young people allowed me to form relationships with pupils and to help them reach their own success levels. I found this to be rewarding and encouraging, and most importantly you begin to develop your own teaching philosophy through experiencing different situations.


My daily main roles and responsibilities involved assisting and leading PE lessons, coaching extra curricular sport, organising events such as Sports Day, organising weekly sporting fixtures, being trained First Aid and treating pupils, and lastly I was in charge of the selling and organising school kit.
All these roles are inherent to the subject, but there are many other areas that I was fortunate to be involved in. These included organising the Guinness World Record for holding the largest PE lesson in the world whereby 858 pupils all took part in the same activity at the same time and I also organised two school hockey tours for the pupils.

The year was challenging and demanding but the opportunities, important relationships formed and enjoyment I experienced were definitely worthwhile and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to follow in the same career path.