Week One

We got stuck in terrible traffic on the way to our first session and arrived with exactly zero minutes to spare. The Head Teacher led us to the sports hall to introduce us to the participants. We were expecting a collection of staring eyes and adults tut-tutting and looking at their watches. Instead, we were greeted with a somewhat reasrruring racket of screaming children running round in endless, manic circles and adults chatting happily about what they'd done today.

The Head Teacher introduced us and then left us to it. We handed out the obligatory forms for participants to fill in (medical history, allergies, injuries, etc.) and while the adults filled those in, it gave us time to build "Stan" our skeleton and organize our paperwork.

The kids hadn't seen a skeleton before and were fascinated. None were scared, thank goodness. They asked David questions while I did a head count and tried to get our lesson plan organized and run through again in my head how we wanted the session to go. We had six families which totalled sixteen people - a nice, manageable number....just.

We've decided that each session should incorporate some theory work and some practical. Our first session was all about bones. We taught the group the various roles of bones, how to keep them healthy and the names of the main parts of the skeleton. We were pleasantly surprised with the existing knowledge the kids had - they all knew calcium was essential for healthy bones and that it was found in dairy products and greens. One little boy was slightly confused but on the right lines when he informed us that we get calcium from cows......

We were also pleased at how well-behaved the kids were. Every so often, we heard "when are we doing the running?", reminiscent of the "are we nearly there yet?", but generally they were eager to learn. We breathed a slight sigh of relief at this, having watched a rather disturbing episode of Jamie's Dream School the previous evening.

Eventually the kids got restless and it was time to get everyone up and moving about. Of course, we asked everybody to take their shoes off. The kids thought nothing of it - they do their PE with bare feet anyway. There are some pretty sharp adults in the class though who ask some intelligent questions so we need to be on the ball and explain the science behind the concept of barefooting. To say that some of them were dubious about it is too strong a word - they just needed convincing, as do the majority of people, that what we've been told, or had drummed in to us, about the need for stability, cushioning etc. can and should be questioned.

We didn't do any running today but put together a little mobility routine for all the families to practise at home. We also dished out some written homework and asked them to find out five interesting things about muscles for next week's session.

All in all, a great first session. We were exhausted at the end though - give me a barefoot 10 miler any day, but this was challenge!