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School children learn from gold medal master

24 March 2009

 

Sporting pupils were put through their paces by gold medallist Jared Deacon.

Jared, who won gold in the Commonwealth and European 4x400m, was on hand to share athletics tips with secondary pupils visiting the University.

The event, on Monday 23 March, was one of the diverse activities on offer during a day-long Sport and Nutrition workshop, which formed part of the University’s award-winning Meteor programme.

Jared works as a coach for the English Institute of Sport in Gateshead and has previously been named UK Athletics Coach of the Year for his work as a voluntary athletics coach in the North East.

Master's degree He also achieved a Master of Science degree in Sport and Exercise from the University last year, through part-time study.

During the day Jared delivered a practical session on running mechanics to 90 year-eight (aged 12 to 13 years) pupils from six secondary schools across the Tees Valley. He also gave an inspirational lecture to the pupils, featuring visual clips from previous Olympic competitions.

Jared said: 'The response from the pupils was really good, they asked questions and were asking for autographs at lunchtime which was nice.

'Everyone tried their best and tried to do what was asked of them, even though it was something new.'

Additional activities During the day, the pupils took part in a range of other activities, including:

  • seeing the workings of the University’s Environmental Chamber, which simulates extremities of hot and cold temperatures to assist athletes’ training
  • listening to a sports lecture on ‘finding the champions of the future’
  • completing a session on food labelling, looking at the health and nutritional value of various foods
  • taking part in an awards ceremony at the end of the day, with awards presented by Jared Deacon.

The sport and nutrition workshop was organised as part of the Meteor Programme STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Integrated Education Strategy. This is funded by One NorthEast, aimed at helping promote awareness of science, technology, engineering and mathematics with young people in the local area.

Joanne Bulmer, Schools & Colleges Partnerships (Pre-16 Team) said: 'We were delighted to have such a successful athlete like Jared here to inspire our visiting pupils. It was a varied programme, exploring different aspects of sport and nutrition which are all important to young people.'

  • The University of Teesside’s Meteor programme aims to inspire primary and secondary school children to think about higher education. The University first launched Meteor in 1999 as an initiative to inspire primary children from six Middlesbrough schools to think about the benefits of further and higher education. Since then Meteor has expanded massively and now includes young people in secondary schools throughout the Tees Valley.


 
 
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