Student Voice Blog: Get Moving
By Allanah and Paige – Year 10
Today in this blog, I am going to be sharing my experience of the Aimhigher Get Moving trip to Villa Park. The trip consisted of 5 hours on Wednesday the 26th of February. Packed with a plethora of information and activities to get us involved and to inform us of the future education and career choices, we can apply for in the sports industry. On the trip many schools including our own.
When we got there, we were given an introduction, which shared with us the aims of the day and a current sports student, who spoke about his studies and his course. We also had a talk about careers at the stadium, explaining that it isn’t just players who work there, they have waiters and waitresses, grounds people, data analysts and physiotherapists and masseuses. He told us that there are 440 full time positions at the stadium. One of the coaches told me “There’s a whole range of sports you can try, that you don’t know you’re good at yet”. This really inspired me to try new things.
During the day we had a variety of different sessions. The first session was a skills session. Aston Villa coaches led this session for the students. They taught us different skills that we would use in matches, they did this through mini-games and we learnt skills that we would have to use in a match later on.
The second session was led by Gym Shark, they talked to us about the company and how they got to become as big as they are today. They then set us a task to create a Tic-Tok to market their new running range. We did this in small groups. For our video, we made a short dance routine wearing the clothes as we thought this was a fun way to showcase the clothes. Once everyone had made their Tik Tok, the Gym Shark ambassadors judged who they thought had the best idea. There were some very good and very random videos.
Lunch was the best part, the food was delicious and the tiny jars of mayonnaise and ketchup were amazing. They were so tiny! We had chicken nuggets and pizza and it was all very delicious. I wish I could take some home.
After lunch, we had a stadium tour. It was incredible and very interesting to learn about the history of Aston Villa, and learning about the amazing things they have accomplished. I was amazed to learn about all the players, and learn more about the routines they have before and after matches. At the end of the day, we had Julz Adeniran, a Great British Athlete, who gave us a motivational speech about life and how we should strive for the best. He really motivated me to do the best I can.
For me, Allanah, the best part of the day was the little jars of mayonnaise and lunch time. All the activities we did made me really hungry. For me, Paige, my highlight of the day was the stadium tour, getting to sit in one of the manager’s seats in the actual stadium. I felt like I was the manager, I felt special.
Head over to the Aimhigher Instagram @aimhigherwm to view the Get Moving Film
A big thank you to Paige and Allanah for writing our first Aimhigher Student Voice Blog Post!