Resumption of Juniors Training from 23rd June

By Bob Jackson Juniors Training 15 June 2020

From 2 June, the government sanctioned training groups of 1 coach and 5 athletes providing all maintain social distancing of 2 metres.

We have reviewed the facilities at Leos and the activities that we include in our junior sessions and we believe we are ready to restart junior training on 23 June, albeit with limited numbers.

We will have two pilot sessions, one on 23rd June, the other on 30th June.  We will have 3 groups at each session, therefore our capacity is 15 children per session i.e. 30 in total may attend one of the pilot sessions.

NB We are negotiating with Leos whether it will be possible to extend our Tuesday evening slot, and If so, and if the pilots are successful, and if the government don’t introduce more restrictions, we plan to have 2 sessions each evening from 7th July onwards and therefore have capacity for 30 children each evening.

We are giving priority to those who have taken part in the most V S lockdown activities – training (from home) and virtual races – in the last 7 weeks.

27 children have been invited to attend on two dates -either the 23rd or the 30th June, and also 7th July.

A further 9 children who took part in one less virtual activity than the cut-off have been invited to attend one of the 3 dates.

If you’ve not received an email in the last couple of days, then unfortunately your child/children didn’t take part in sufficient virtual activities. But please take part in some over the next 3 to 4 weeks as we’ll then be reviewing whether we can increase the total capacity and also, if anyone is allowed to go away on holiday, we will have occasional vacancies too.

We have identified 3 activity areas (1,2,3 on map) and 3 meeting points

We have identified that 4 of the activities that we have used in the past can, with minor modification, be safe in this new environment.  Each week we will choose 3 of these.

Parents who have helped in the past will be familiar with most or all of these.

Richard and I will be supervising the sessions (at a bit further away than minimum social distance). 

For each week of the pilot, 3 parents will be group leaders, one for each group. 

We’d like other parents to view the session from afar to enable them to consider whether they might lead a group in a future week.

The group leaders will be responsible for the assembly, warm-up, all three activities and cool down for the 5 children that are allocated to them (this is a big change from “normal” sessions, where everyone would meet together, everyone might warm up together and each leader is responsible for an activity not for a group). 

The group leaders will also be responsible for two rules specific to CoVid – that the 2 metre rule is adhered to and that none of the group (including themselves) touch any stakes or any other equipment – I will be solely responsible for this including collecting the equipment after the session.

By the Saturday before each session, Richard and I will have

  • Decided on the 3 activities and where each will be situated
  • Decided for groups 1 2 and 3, which activity they will do first, which second and which third
  • Selected the three parents to lead, and allocated them a group number, 1 2 or 3
  • Also selected reserve parents in case someone isn’t able to come or is late (note that if a family is late and the session has started, the child will be able to join the group but the parent won’t)
  • Selected the 15 children to attend and allocated each of them to a group
  • Let everyone know so they know where to meet on the Tuesday evening

Just for your general information, here is the latest England Athletics guidance regarding training

https://www.englandathletics.org/athletics-and-running/news/guidance-update-step-2/

And here is the risk assessment we have prepared.https://www.valleystriders.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/CoVid-risk-assessment-VS-juniors.docx

Bob Jackson / About Author
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