Aiden Harris

Background

About Aiden Harris

Aspiring physical education trainee teacher, a recent graduated student at Solent University in MSc and BSc sports science and performance coaching. Now studying a PGCE in physical education at the University of Reading.PE was a powerful subject for me at secondary school and was the stepping stone to not just becoming another ‘physically active participant’ but developing me holistically, allowing maturation and elitism to always strive for the best outcomes emotionally, physically and socially. This same feeling of what PE gave me as a child is tailored into my lessons, with student-led approaches and utilising sports education models to ensure the pupils who enter and leave the PE class have meaningful PE experiences. Much of my working and industry experience relates to youth football coaching, having nearly spent 6 years coaching youth footballers. This experience has allowed me to shape my own coaching experience and pedagogy. Youth football coaching has always been a passion of mine and to further develop myself as a coach in every aspect has always been a focal point for me. Being mentored by my current boss an UEFA A-license football coach, has helped me gauge this and become more advanced in areas I was not conscious of.Whilst I am certain adding sporting qualifications is essential, I have looked further afield outside of the sports realm and recently started a qualification called ‘Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)’ mainly to be adaptive for EAL students and be able to show adaptive practice to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of physical education, but also my expressed desired to work in Paris within an international school in the future. Within my first 6 months of being a trainee PE teacher, I have faced many behavioural challenges in the form of non-doers or non-kit pupils, this has built resilience as well as persistence to always be that friendly supportive face to a pupil but also ensured the rules are enforced and that every lesson is a fresh start to rectify mistakes. Utilising technology in the form of iPads has become a great intuitive tool of mine to unbrand the term ‘non-doers’ and more of ‘analysts’ for the lesson. Being consistent in my calm teaching mannerisms is essential to my teaching identity, tailored with strategies such as the ‘U-Shape formation’ when addressing classes to ensure focus is on the lesson objectives and not on distracting others forms another part of my lesson routines to shape learning.