Does your child do trampolining? Can I ask a question

[mawbroon]

How many kids in the class, and what do they do when they are not on the trampoline?

DS1 is 5 and has been going since August. The usual coach hasn't been there for weeks, apparently she is not well.

So, there has been a string of different coaches coming in every week, all of whom seem to let the kids just piss about when they are not actually on the trampoline. DS1 included.

One week, no coach at all turned up, so one of the guys who works at the leisure centre took the class and he had them doing all sorts off stuff in between shots on the trampoline. It wasn't that he was ignoring someone on the trampoline to do this, it only took him a couple of minutes between turns. DS1 had a great time that week and every week hopes it will be this same guy.

My questions is this - are all these coaches that we've had just a bit rubbish?

Or is concentrating purely one to one the done thing?

we stopped trampoline club because of this... the 'norm' seeming that 'if youre not any good yet then by all means piss about we dont care'. It sounds a bit like that to me...
YES they concentrate on the one bouncing, of course, but the others should be 'spotting' at the sides, or engaging somehow...

I used to be a coach and I would say that the other coaches are a bit rubbish. I was lucky in that we had three very good trampolines, we had a coach per trampoline and the kids would rotate round the trampolines (as one tramp. was better than the rest). Then the kids who weren't on at that point had to spot the one who was on. We had a cap of 15 per lesson though.

If they looked like they were hanging around we used to do a bit of gymnastics etc as well.

our have about 5 kids per trampoline.
discipline seems good, so no pissing about, but on the other hand I've not seen them do anything constructive when not actually on the trampoline.

I'd give the sports centre some positive feedback about the 'good' coach. Seems obvious now that you've mentioned it.

Thanks for your replies.

There are 2 trampolines and 1 coach. No more than 8 kids in total, from ages 5 to 8. So, I think the ratios are fair enough.

We got emails from the leisure centre the other day asking for feedback for all the coaching. I found myself giving glowing references for the swimming and football coaches and struggled to find a nice way of saying that the trampolining coaches were a bit rubbish!

DS1 is generally well behaved, and I am not keen on him thinking that pissing about at trampolining is ok.

I need to convey this to them without coming over all "oh my darling son is an angel and it's all the coach's fault he is pissing about"