Value of Sport Conference

As part of the Compact Plus Programme, the University of Brighton held a Value of Sport 6^th Form Conference at the Eastbourne campus to highlight the opportunities to pursue sport as a career.

Students from BACA, Ark William Parker Academy and Uxbridge College were welcomed by Mark Hayes, Senior Lecturer, followed by a keynote presentation from University of Brighton Alumna Katy Ritchie who has worked on lottery funded projects such as Back to Netball and is currently developing All Stars Cricket.

Students participated in three practical workshops during the day:

• Strength and Conditioning, in the university’s gym
• The Environmental Lab, looking at how heat can affect performance in sport which included time in the thermal chamber currently set at Tokyo Olympics heat and humidity levels
• In the Biomechanics Lab a session ran on monitoring the forces at work and reaction times in relation to coming off the starting blocks.

After lunch, Dr Mark Doidge, a Senior Research Fellow at the university gave a sport studies lecture about the value of sport. This was followed by one of our student ambassadors, Della Lawson, a Sport and Exercise Science BSc(Hons) graduate and now PGCE student, who gave a student life presentation.

Throughout the day, student ambassadors were on hand to answer questions.

The day was a great success with students commenting:

“I feel I have learnt what different sport courses will entail. Informative talks were useful.”

“I think it was useful to learn about the different practical elements to different courses.”

This was echoed by the teachers who joined them: “A really eye-opening experience for my A-level students…I will go back to school singing your praises as I am sure my students will. Thank you for an amazing day.”

See more upcoming events from the Compact Plus Programme.