This week began with a visit to Orchard Meadow Primary School with our project lead and impact advisor. The opportunities to speak to the headteacher of the school directly, hear from a year 6 teacher about the impact of the sports intervention on her pupils, and meet some of the students themselves was very valuable. What struck me particularly was the stark difference in aspiration, socioeconomic backgrounds and opportunity between central Oxford and an area just a 20-minute bus ride away. Our conversation with the headteacher helped to elucidate some of the barriers to participation in enrichment activities - an eye-opening one was the possibility of domestic trauma. These findings will be pivotal in helping us discuss our results in greater depth in the forthcoming weeks. 

Looking back, one way in which I contributed to the success of our group was asking questions at the school visit, in particular when speaking to one of the year 6 teachers - a primary stakeholder in our research project whose insight is crucial. I also arranged a meeting with my group to discuss our plan in creating the stakeholder map and allocate different parts to each member. I aim to use the remainder of the week as opportunities to further develop leadership skills through participating in the powerhouse games at Iffley sports centre and volunteering at Leys festival. Following on from Anjali's talk on leadership, I reflected on what I think makes a good leader; for me, this is someone who has a commitment to their purpose, is effective in delegating tasks and sustains trust with those they are leading.

One way in which I would like to improve for next week is by thinking more critically about our findings and using these to develop discussions further and add nuance, e.g., brainstorming ideas using mind maps. I would also like to start putting data organisation/analysis into practice using the IT sessions we have attended over the past two weeks. This will make it easier to locate and reference sources as the project progresses. I look forward to receiving data from our project lead and begin our analyses.