Alliance Primary School, Whampoa
11/07/2017
Football is more than a sport (19/01/2017)
Football team as a family (Updated on 15/03/2017)
Enhancing team cohesion through football (Updated on 11/07/2017)
Football is more than a sport (19/01/2017)
Football team at Alliance Primary School, Whampoa is not just any sport team. It is a bridge that links teachers, students and parents together.
Jonathan Tam is the lead and the football coach of Alliance Primary School, Whampoa. His expertise is largely in swimming and korfball but football coaching is, however, a job that he enjoyed the most. With only two years of experience, Tam successfully managed to build a team which possesses strong cohesion, with all players, students and even parents well-bonded to each other. Apart from the football matches, the football team also organises a series of social gatherings and events with teachers and parents such as barbeques, Lunar New Year celebrations and game-watching parties.
Jonathan Tam believed that football not only involves the players and the coach; the support of parents also plays a part in the football game. He hopes that with its emphasis on communication, the JC School Football Development Scheme can improve his teaching skills, and at the same time build stronger cohesion within the team. He thought that building on the team spirit concept, football can become a vehicle for applying holistic learning and teaching at school, so that student not only can learn the football skills, but also broaden their life experiences.
Football team as a family (Updated on 15/03/2017)
The football team of Alliance Primary School, Whampoa is not just a football team; it is also a big family. All members, including coach, players and parents, demonstrate strong team cohesion. Credits go to their coach, Jonathan Tam.
As a coach, Jonathan is still green in the field, but just in his second year of teaching, he managed to help Alliance Primary School, Whampoa win an inter-school championship. Although the chance was not with them at this season’s inter-school competition, Tac Lui, a Primary 6 player remained fully confident in Jonathan. To a young pupil like Tac, Jonathan is more than a coach: “He’s my coach inside the field but a family member of mine when outside”. According to Tac, Jonathan had a passion in teaching. In order to raise the bar on performance and standard of the players, he even invited the school alumni to conduct additional training or friendly matches. He is always caring to his students and reaches out to them, giving them advices when they encounter difficulties in life, such as when they were about to get in secondary school as well as other academic problems. Tam’s attention to the students has contributed to the trust in the good relationship between the teacher and players. This sense of team spirit coincidentally echoes with the philosophy of the JC School Football Development Scheme, which emphasises on building a cohesive football team by cultivating good communication.
Football is never just a sport. It is a vehicle for team building. To Tac, the greatest lesson he learnt from Jonathan is team work, which can be beneficial for the rest of his life.
Enhancing team cohesion through football (Updated on 11/07/2017)
The support on football at Alliance Primary School, Whampoa can be seen everywhere in the campus. Football games have enhanced the cohesion among the players, coaches, parents and the principal. Through participating in the JC School Football Development Scheme, Alliance Primary School, Whampoa has reaffirmed their football education approach.
According to Yuen Ying Choi, Principal of Alliance Primary School, Whampoa, the education philosophy of the JC School Football Development Scheme is hard to come by. It not only trains up the motor skills of the young footballers but also stresses on the development on their morality and social skills, enabling the young generation to become a football player equipped with both skills and manner. Principal Choi also stated that after the learning and practice of the training programme, Jonathan Tam was able to effectively inject fun elements into learning, enabling the players to pick up the life skills from sports which remain useful for the lifetime, including team spirit, problem-solving skills and time management.
The holistic learning and teach approach is the education philosophy of Principal of Alliance Primary School. Through football, coach Tam not only brings cohesion to the team, but also the persistence and faith in children education, only because he believes that by upholding his belief in education, he will be able to sow quality seeds for the school and the community.