Claire Tappin is the new coach developer for Mid Canterbury Netball. Photo Erin TaskerNetball and teaching have both played a big part in Claire Tappin’s life, and now she’s landed a job which combines the two just nicely.

Tappin is the new Mid Canterbury Netball coach developer, a part-time position which was previously absorbed by Mid Canterbury Netball’s netball development officer, but had become a standalone position thanks to some extra funding.

And Tappin is looking forward to really getting her teeth into it and finding out how she could best help Mid Canterbury’s netball coaches.

“My job is to grow and sustain coaching numbers for Mid Canterbury Netball, so pretty much finding out what our coaches need and want, and co-ordinating and delivering it,” Tappin said.

As a teacher, a former netballer who played to a high level growing up in the United Kingdom, and a coach herself, it is a role that is pretty much perfect for her.

“This is a role that I was kind of doing when I left the UK 20 years ago, I was delivering sessions to coaches within the UK,” Tappin said.

This new role would see her working with coaches from Year 7 and 8 teams right through to premier level coaches.

Mid Canterbury Netball already had 30 coaches on the Netball New Zealand coaching pathway after attending official modules, with half a dozen actively working towards qualifications and another half a dozen ready to take that step.

Historically though, the Mid Canterbury Netball Centre had a low uptake when it came to attending courses, so Tappin said it was important she looked at things differently, rather than just her or Mainland Netball’s Deb Johnson delivering modules.

Tappin had put together her first two sessions for coaches, and the first is set to take place this weekend. It is all about shooting and she’s brought former Silver Fern shooter Angela Mitchell and current Canterbury Tactix squad member Kate Lloyd in to take part.

The next weekend, on December 8 and 9, would include a session with Ashburton’s Andrea Cousins on player centred coaching.

Cousins was the assistant coach of this year’s Mainland team in the Beko Netball League, and her club team won the Christchurch premier grade.

Tappin herself had pretty good credentials too, though, as one of three coach developers from Mainland Netball invited to a Sport Canterbury regional training day recently. She also used to be Ashburton College’s specialist classroom teacher, which she said was the educational equivalent of a coach developer, and two years ago she attended a week-long national conference to develop her skills in that role.

As a player, Tappin was a formidable defender and a key player in the United A premier team for many years after moving to New Zealand 20 years ago. Now, she is the coach of that team.

Tappin played netball from a young age back in the UK and played for the England schools’ team.

As a defender, she knew the defence end of the court pretty much inside out, but when it came to things like shooting, there were things she could learn. It was a similar story with most coaches – every coach had something they could learn, and Tappin’s job was to find out what coaches wanted and make it happen.

“I actually think I get even more of a buzz from coaching coaches rather than players, because you give them the why behind things, the why you’re doing things and why it’s working,” Tappin said.

Coaching the coaches had a flow-on effect to players, which meant when you helped a coach grow you were helping the players to grow, too.

Tappin said in her role it was important she continued to coach too, so would be back with United A next season, and hopefully back for a second season coaching Mid Canterbury’s seniors.

Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 10 November 2018

The rebuild of Ashburton College’s elderly classrooms has been on the drawing board for several years and the project’s future is now in Government hands.

College principal Ross Preece has been working with the Ministry of Education’s property advisors on the rebuild and said what happened next was up to Cabinet.

“We know we’ve cleared the ministry’s hurdles, we’ve done all we can and it’s up to Cabinet to decide how many dollars they’ll give us,” he said.

The ministry could recommend a scale of work and put a dollar value around this, but the power lay with Cabinet to say yes, or no, Preece said.

“The good news is that we will know the decision early in the new year and if there is a significant rebuild with large dollars around it the minister will announce it.”

Most parts of the college were shabby and run down and the college’s dilemma now was whether to spend money on upgrading those blocks if they were to come down in five years, he said.

Upgrade work will be carried out on the school’s mini-gym but work on the auditorium will be deferred until the outcome of the building proposal is known.

“We’re having to do selective work until we know but drab, grey concrete blocks might be fine in East Berlin but not in a modern learning environment.”

In terms of a time frame, Preece anticipates that if funds for a rebuild are approved, the ‘new’ college is unlikely to be completed before 2021.

The college was at 100 per cent capacity in terms of classroom space but it was fortunate in having plenty of green spaces and the old netball court area where prefab classrooms could be placed during a rebuild, he said.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 8 November 2018

An innovative curriculum change at Ashburton College has been given overwhelming support by both students and parents.

The college has developed a pilot programme for next year’s Year 9 students that will use a new approach to learning based on developing students’ resilience, creative problem solving and communication skills.

About 60 per cent of next year’s Year 9 students will be involved in the pilot that will see students involved in a project based learning model that sees the integration of some subjects rather than working on the traditional standalone subject model, principal Ross Preece said.

“I’m really pleased with the response from both parents and staff; it looks as though we’ll have five or six of our 10 or 11 Year 9 classes in the pilot next year.”

The move into project-based learning would be a gentle one, however, with students spending between nine and 12 hours each week in pilot classrooms and the remainder in a traditional learning environment.

“Yes, there were parents concerned that they were making the right choice, but at the end of the day, but were not discarding tradition.

“You’ll still know how your child is achieving in standard subjects but we’ll also be reporting on what engages your child,” he said.

Project based learning was already being piloted in a number of other schools around New Zealand and the new model is similar to the learning environment students were accustomed to at intermediate and primary level, he said.

“But this is massive change, the first change in education in 100 plus years.”

Parents liked the new approach to learning because it prepared their child for what would be an uncertain future in a changing workplace, Preece said.

“We all acknowledge the future will be different and we can’t carry on doing the same as we have done in education for more than 100 years.

“It’s served us well but schools now have to be prepared to do things differently.

“And parents are understanding the future will be different so schools need to change and be different too.”

For teachers, the new learning environment would mean significant change, away from standing in front of a classroom to becoming a facilitator who moved between groups of students.

Schools could stick with tradition in a world where the workplace was changing, but that would not serve their students well, or they could change and make learning more relevant for tomorrow’s workplace, he said.

The Year 9 trial will provide a starting point for the future whole-school curriculum and the college was committed to continuing with subject integration for Year 10 students who wanted it in 2020.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 8 November 2018