• Christmas Time...
    Dec 19 2022

    A more chilled-out episode, where we chat about all things Christmas...

    - Christmas Traditions

    - Our plans over Christmas

    - Crimbo Limbo

    - Playing sport over Christmas vs watching it.

     

    Then some hard-hitting topics in the New Year...

     

    Merry Christmas everyone!

     

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    54 mins
  • Travelling
    Dec 12 2022

    Kate is back from Dubai, and what better topic to talk about than travelling?

    Kate talks about her experiences taking little Beau to Dubai with her and Oscar and what an eye-opener this was...

    We also talk about:

    • Family holidays as a kid
    • School fines for parents taking their children out of school in term time
    • Wow experiences for children
    • The attention children get when on holiday
    • Siobhan and my travelling experiences of going away for nearly a year
    • Our views on travelling with our children and how important this is
    • Creating memories and experiences. 

    I hope you enjoy today's episode.

    See you on next week's episode where we will be talking about Christmas and FUN!!

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    53 mins
  • Our First Inspired Awards Dinner
    Dec 5 2022

    Why did we host our very first awards 'Inspired Awards Dinner'?

    • In 2015, when the business started taking shape, in it’s 3rd year, I wrote out some goals!
      • One was to give back to Bridgwater and another was to inspire children and families to be more active
      • Transpire and Manifest
    • My own childhood was filled with opportunities at home and my primary and secondary schools.  I was so fortunate
    • I think children have fewer opportunities to be active and we see that as our job, to fill this gap and provide as many opportunities for young people to be active and moreover make these opportunities FREE.
    • And that is why we decided to host an awards dinner.
    • To celebrate all things PE, sport and physical activity
    • There are so many wonderful things that are happening, and unsung heroes that are going unnoticed to provide opportunities to young people.
    • We know the power that it can have, learning about success and failure, friendships, role models, mental well-being, physical health and so much more.
    • Here to celebrate those people, schools and clubs and raise the profile of sport and PE.

    I also talk about our business values, plus my personal values as a parent, reflecting on the England football and cricket teams.

     

    Enjoy...

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    23 mins
  • Why are girls dropping out of sport?
    Nov 28 2022

    Why are girls dropping out of Sport?

     

    Who better to talk about this than Kate!  Someone that has been faced by pretty much every barrier imaginable. We talk about a range of topics, some that I am certainly not qualified to talk about, but am fascinated to learn more on, so I can be the best Dad possible.

     

    A BBC article, only last week saying that the total number of girls who stopped playing sport entirely went up from last year.

     

    With one in four girls feeling unconfident to play sport in primary school, and this figure rises to one in three by the time they get to secondary school.

     

    One of the main reasons they said they stopped playing sport is that they they don't feel welcome in a male environment.

     

    Elsa said: "I tried to join a football team but it was all boys and me and when we actually played, no one passed to me."

     

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/63553277

     

    What can we do to address this and ensure that more girls can find a sport or physical activity that they love?

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    58 mins
  • Failure
    Nov 21 2022

    This episode is all about failure.

     

    If you put failure into google it will come back with quotes from inspirational people about how important failure is.  But we dive into the complexities around failure and how we both agree that yes, it is important, but there are other factors to consider, creating a positive environment, how we can plan for failure and a quote that I found when researching the podcast from Gary Vaynerchuck about micro failure vs macro success, which I love and what this means for us as parents, coaches and teachers.

     

    “I’d argue that I didn’t really fail, I learned I might have micro failed, but I macro won” - Gary Vaynerchuck

     

    “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying again” - Michael Jordan

     

    When in search of a great quote, Michael Jordan is my go-to!

     

    During this episode, we give our take on failure and how we can use failure in parenting, teaching and coaching to help make our children resilient, and patient and have the personal characteristic to use failure as a building block to success and reaching their potential.

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    41 mins
  • Nature Vs Nurture
    Nov 14 2022

    I think you'll all agree that Kate has been amazing on the podcast.  I love speaking to her about the topics discussed so far and this week we go into:

    Nature vs Nurture

    We discuss the role of hard work vs natural talent. Is one more important than the other?  

    What else is important when our children are growing up?  Should we praise more than just the outcome, so that values such as work ethic as instilled in the children in our care?  

    We also talk about Matthew Syed's book 'Bounce', Malcolm Gladwell's quote around 10,000 hours and my hero growing up, Michale Jorda, and his attitude to failure.

    We put all of this into the context of parenting, teaching and coaching and we hope you enjoy listening as much as we did recording.

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    45 mins
  • Balancing motherhood with starting a business and playing rugby full-time!
    Nov 7 2022

    I am delighted to welcome a special guest and co-shot to the podcast - Kate Alder

    Kate was on the only the 3rd episode ever of The School Run Podcast which was released in May 2021 

    ·      Since then Kate has become a mother to now 9 months old Beau and started a recruitment company at the height of the pandemic!

    ·      I can’t wait for you to hear all about how she is managing everything as we explore work-like balance, running businesses and being a parent.

    We explore:

    - What are your values and what is most important to you?

    - Me failing to juggle school correspondence!

    - Kate's incredible work ethic and getting back into rugby

    - Kate launched a new business and then found out she was pregnant!

    - Being the best version of yourself

    - Being open and honest with your partner so they understand what you need and want and vice versa.

    And lot's more.  

    I hope you love the new format as much as I did and I look forward to welcoming to next week's episode 😊

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    35 mins
  • When should I let my child have a phone?
    Oct 31 2022
    When should your child be allowed a phone?   Do what is right for your children. Not you, to make your life easier!   Children are drawn in by trying to do things before they are supposed to. Drinking, smoking etc   Or because all their friends have a phone.   There doesn’t seem to be a right answer, but there are definitely wrong answers.   What were the concerns for our parents? Drinking, smoking,    I’m not a worrier by nature, I’m pretty laid back as a parent, but the digital world scares me.    Why?  Innaproriate use of social media, the internetNot having ‘real models’ as I spoke about last week 13 for social media. Roblox is the most popular online computer game in the UK for under-13s, according to a recent survey. It's free to use and it's a platform that lets you play millions of different games, or you can build your own game and let other people play it. It's played by more than 25 million children worldwide and many schools and institutions use it to teach children how to build games online. But I've been looking into a worrying rise in the number of children finding upsetting and harmful content on the site. I was playing Roblox and I was on a game where you work at a pizza place and two people were pressuring girls to do inappropriate stuff with them and if they did, they would get extra money in the game. Girl aged 14 7+ is the age limit. Then you have Fortnight - 13+ as well.  But the children in Primaries when it came out all knew the dances!  TikTok algorithm. The notice sets out the ICO's provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020. The ICO investigation found the social platform may have: processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consentfailed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood wayprocessed special category data, without legal grounds to do so According to Ofcom, 44% of eight to 12-year-olds in the UK use TikTok, despite its policies forbidding under-13s on the platform. YouTube - Learning how to draw on YouTube Parental controlsGive them a phone without the internet.  Izzy is going to be disappointed when she gets her first one, when she’s 18!  The Social Dilemma The documentary examines how social media's design nurtures addiction to maximize profit and its ability to manipulate people's views, emotions, and behavior and spread conspiracy theories and disinformation. So social media is a big concern of mine. But also communicating with other children. What’s app and communicating with their friends.  - what’s app legal age requirement if 16! Pressure on parents By the time kids are in middle school, the pressure from kids can be intense, and parents worry that their child will feel isolated if other kids have phones and they don’t. According to Common Sense Media, 42 percent of kids have a phone by age 10. By age 12, it’s 71 percent. By 14, it’s 91 percent. And so when should your child get the first phone? At what age should a kid get their first phone? Return to menu Anywhere from 10 to 14, though there are valid reasons to give a child a phone earlier (they commute alone, or switch between two parents’ houses) or later (they’re not mature enough, have shown previous problems with tech overuse). There is not one magic age for every child, but we’ll help you find the sweet spot for your own family. Ultimately, the decision is up to the parent or guardian, who knows the child and their own child-rearing philosophy best. Mental Health crisis - children using phones in their bedrooms.  Can’t switch off.  Keeping up to date with the latest TikTok, or social media platform “If we are in a mental health crisis – which we are – and we have some factors that are really hard to change, like our educational system, and some factors that are really technically easy to change, like an algorithm or code, we should,” Radesky told me. “We should work with the tech companies to figure out what settings, what content filters, what guidance would help kids have healthy relationships with these social sites.” We live in a digital world, and I don’t the girls to miss out on opportunities that might arise in the future that might be around social media and tech, but not at the expense of being a child and having a rich childhood.  There is plenty of time to grow up!  They are only a child once.
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    21 mins