WHAT IS ANGLING4SUCCESS?
A4S offers groups of similarly aged students (between ages 10 - 19) the opportunity to learn angling and digital photography from a team of: Level 2 Angling Coaches; experienced youth worker mentors; and a photography tutor.
Learning takes place one day a week over a minimum of 6 weeks, in which time students are tutored, lakeside, where they learn many new angling skills, techniques and knowlegde of their natural surroundings from qualified angling coaches.
Complementing the angling is a digital photography module, which encourages students to discover, learn about and appreciate the natural surroundings of the lakes. Students are given a blank canvas to create their own photographic interpretation of the lake-side learning environment and produce their own photo portfolio, which is then published on the Angling4Success web page: www.flickr.com/energizeimage/sets
WHO IS THE ANGLING4SUCCESS COURSE AIMED AT?
This is a progressive course with a perpetual mentoring framework, which can take students from an introductory session through being an alternative curriculum mentee to being an alternative curriculum mentor and beyond. We now have links with Shuttleworth College (Beds) & Brooksby Melton College, who both provide follow on courses to our BTEC Fisrt Certificate in Fish Husbandry.
WHICH ANGLING4SUCCESS COURSES & ACCREDITATION ARE AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS?
After the initial taster session, qualifications are available to students including ASDAN YAA Awards & AQAs, OCN Improving Learning & Performance and we are working on an educational package, which , from early 2009, will take pre-16 students up to BTEC Level in Fish Husbandry ( the equivalent of 2 GCSEs) as a possible prequel to furthering this line of study at Shuttleworth/Brooksby Melton College.
WHAT DOES EACH COURSE INVOLVE?
Introduction / Have-a-Go! Day
(Various clients)
Sessions of 1 Hour to a Full Day
Try fishing and/or photography for the first time or to improve on basic skills, either as an ad hoc experience or as a introduction to the alternative curriculum course. Achieve results and gain confidence to try other new skills or enjoy more of the same. Alternatively develop as a group through shared experiences in the outdoors. Suitable also for families / youth groups / companies / community groups / adult education and more besides.
Options also available: Forest Skills, Falconry
Alternative Curriculum Sessions
(Groups of up to 8 Students or intensive One-to-one Sessions)
6+ x 1 Day (1 day per week)
A course for school/college students aged 10 to 16 (PRE-NEET)
An opportunity for candidates to engage in an activity that they are passionate about and in doing so gain affirmation of their ability to learn new skills and have these skills accredited through ASDAN Youth Achievement Award or OCN accreditation (Introduction to Angling and the Environment and/or Improve Own Learning and Performance). Energize is uniquely placed to provide both small group work and intensive one-to-one support to the hardest to reach young people.
Options also available: Forest Skills / Falconry
Peer Mentoring Course
(A course for groups of school age students)
3 x 1 Day
A comprehensive training package that will enable a mixed age group of mentors and mentees: Up to 6 x Yr 12 - Academically and socially established students who will provide leadership for the course and up to 6 x Yr 10 - Disaffected yet charismatic students to undertake the challenging role of preparing for and delivering a taster session for a group of people aged 10 years+
Typically this course will be used to aid student’s transition and decisions to enter post-compulsory education.
WHY DOES THE ANGLING4SUCCESS COURSE WORK?
We have repeatedly observed the paradox that a child who cannot sit still in a classroom for a few minutes can sit on the bank of a river or lake for 6 hours, focussing and strategising on how to succeed against often unpredictable natural variables.
The most applicable educational research we have found that best describes why that might work is the study of "Flow" by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.
FLOW is "the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity."
FLOW is: "... A deep and uniquely human motivation to excel, exceed, and triumph over limitation"....
Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following as accompanying an experience of flow:
- Clear goals - expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities.
- Concentrating and focusing a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
- A loss of the feeling of self consciousness - the merging of action and awareness.
- A distorted sense of time - one's subjective experience of time is altered such that hours lakeside can fly by
- Direct and immediate feedback - successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
- Balance between ability level and challenge - the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult.
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding - so there is an effortlessness of action.
- People become absorbed in their activity and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.
We have observed participants in our courses experience many of these characteristics even from day one of the course.
PREVIOUS CLIENTS:
BEDFORDSHIRE:
Upper Schools: Hastingsbury, John Bunyan, Sharnbrook, Harlington, St Thomas More, Samuel Whitbread
Middle Schools: Robert Bloomfield, Parkfields, Harrowden, Alban
Lower Schools: St John Rigby
NORFOLK:
Thetford PRU, Woodside PRU, Gt. Yarmouth PRU
Please click here to take a look at the extremely positive feedback from schools that have taken part.
PRACTICALITIES ON THE DAY:
For a group of students, we provide:
- All the fishing equipment, all-conditions clothing (overcoats/overtrousers/lined wellington boots/hats/gloves) & fishing umbrellas
- Cameras and lap-tops incl. Photoshop Elements
- Qualified, experienced and CRB checked staff (a level 2 angling coach, a photography tutor/mentor and an additional mentor/trained youth worker)
- Minibus transport from central point to and from the fishery
Experience has proven that the young people need only bring:
- a packed lunch
- an open mind
- A positive attitude
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