A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN EXSPORTISE DANCE COACH

Hello! Let me first introduce myself…I am Charlotte, I have just returned to Exsportise for my fifth summer and I’m going to give you a quick insight into a typical day for me on camp.  I am a dance coach and a house parent.

Typically on a full duty day, my day starts at 7.45am with breakfast duty. Throughout the breakfast period (and lunch and dinner), we supervise and interact with the students to ensure they get the best dining experience they can and that afterwards, the correct recycling takes place to fit the school’s needs.

After breakfast I join all of the other coaches for a staff meeting before jumping into my first session of the day. As a dance coach, my main role is to teach two three hour dance sessions a day. I break my session into three parts. First is a warm up and fitness to get your blood pumping and increase fitness levels. This part also involves some  stretching to increase flexibility and work out any aching from the day before. If it is a large class with student of varying abilities and styles, we will split the group to suit and I will take half and another dance coach will take the other half and this leads into part two of the session. We use this part of the class to teach our smaller groups a performance piece for Friday’s show. This split means that the students are taught effectively to suit their ability to ensure progression from the day the students arrive, to the day they leave Exsportise. The final part of the session is where all of the students come back together to learn a fun group dance that will either open or close the show on a Friday. To end, we do a cool down and thank each other for a great session.

Next will be lunch duty ensuring a good meal time for all and chatting with the students to see how their morning went. My afternoon is a repeat of my morning but with a different group of students. If the group is smaller then I will coach alone and we will work towards two dances for the show together rather than splitting the group. The two classes will have different choreographies each and on a full week, we will have six dances to show on Friday which is exciting.

After the afternoon session I will make my way to the dinner hall for the final meal duty of the day. Along with monitoring behaviour and cleaning up, it is a great time to speak with the students about how their day has been in their chosen activities.

As I teach morning and afternoon, my evenings are spent away from the students. I use this time to choreograph in order to prepare for teaching the following day. This means I will never turn up to session and be choreographing as I go and make the most of my time with the students.

My final duty of the day would be bed duty, ensuring all of the girls arrive in their houses and are asleep for 11pm at the latest. During this time in the house if the girls have any issues or problems they can come to me and I can help them.

The following day, I will then wake the students ready for another great day on camp. My role as house parent asks me to arrange cover in the house whilst the students are in their free time to make sure they are safe and have somebody to come to if they have any problems. I also allocate coaches to bed duties and try to make it as fair as possible! We have coaches based throughout the house who look after the students on their corridor and check in with them to make sure their having a great time (which we hope they are!).

On a Sunday I also welcome the students to my house, run through some rules of the house and let them know where I am if they need me any time, any day! A pretty busy day for me but I love it and so long as the students are essaywritingplace.com safe and having a great time nothing is too much!

PS. If I’m not on bed duty you might find me leading a staff yoga session to stretch out the coaches too!