A Year in Sport, with Craig Brown

By William Moncrieff, Communications Manager

Craig Brown started his year by progressing through his post graduate degree in Physical Education (PE). “I would like to bring my own experiences and hopefully be a role model for children in high schools and show them that you can break down barriers no matter what.” Craig explained when talking about his motivations for wanting to become a PE teacher. 

For Craig, sport and inclusion has always been really important. Especially when taking part in PE throughout both primary and secondary school. Despite his disability, Craig felt that teachers were supportive of him wanting to take part in sport and activity. However, in hindsight he explains, “I feel like now because I am a teacher, I look back now understanding how to include everyone in my class and I think that I made things easier for my PE teachers because I would adapt for them.”

“I often found myself saying, ‘it’s fine, I’ll do my own thing’, because I am confident and I was competent. Another one of my motivations for going into the post graduate would be, when I was younger I always loved sport. I played for my local and school football team but what I found was because of my disability I couldn’t do the same as everyone else. My coach wouldn’t put me on the pitch in case I got hurt or hurt anyone else. I never had a sense of belonging. I want to change these experiences.” 

Craig is a former member of the Young Start programme – a programme designed to break down barriers for young individuals with a disability by helping them gain coaching qualifications. Craig a double amputee and started his higher education by doing a HNC/D in Coaching and Development, before transferring onto a Sports Coaching degree at University of Western Scotland where he achieved his Honors Degree before continuing on to his post graduate degree in PE teaching. 

When Craig started his postgraduate, a lot of it was with other students who were also on the course. This is where Craig felt like he had an impact on his fellow students and lecturers. 

“They (students and lecturers) would always say to me it’s good to have you in here, so we can engage and learn off of you before going into placement”, he said. 

For Craig, having an inclusive mindset came more naturally throughout his postgraduate due to his own experiences. “Now, as a teacher, I need to accommodate various disabilities, whether it’s a physical disability, autism or a learning disability we need to accommodate that, I completely agree with that, it’s great.” 

Once Craig and the other student teachers worked their way through the classroom element of the year, it was time to head out on placement. “The best part is definitely going out on placement, that’s where you learn a lot”, said Craig. 

His placement experience has been a really enjoyable one for Craig, particularly the impact he can have on others. “People now know that you can remove these barriers, you can do whatever you want to do, I think I have helped the staff and the school to realise these kinds of things. You’ve made it all about having that open and honest conversation with someone.” 

Craig felt that throughout the year he was able to build good relationships with fellow staff and pupils, which was due to his personality and humor. Craig felt like this benefited the pupils that he was teaching. “I have always just got on with things and adapted and the students definitely appreciated that, they were motivated to push themselves and try new things.” 

Over this last year, there has been lots of other work done to ensure that pupils with a disability have the best possible experience in PE. An example of this has been the work done by Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) and the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) to modify course specification. For Craig, he felt like this was a positive step: “It’s really important, it needs to happen, it should have happened years ago. With SDS and SQA working together it helps pupils when they come to achieve their qualifications and to accommodate them.”  

He continued to say: “When pupils are coming up, they can choose PE as they now have that confidence that they will be able to do PE as they can now be assessed in things like boccia.” 

Fortunately for Craig this has always been part of his mindset and inclusive thinking, so he is keen to implement this into his future role as a PE Teacher “I’ve always wanted to bring wheelchair basketball or other forms of inclusive sports into schools.”  

If you like to get involved as a coach, participant, official or volunteer, please contact your Regional Development Manager or contact SDS by email: admin@scottishdisabilitysport.com or call: 0131 317 1130.

Make sure to stay up-to-date on all opportunities throughout Scotland, by following Scottish Disability Sport on Facebook, X and Instagram, as well as on the SDS website.

Scottish Curling is excited to announce that bookings are now open for “Series 2 – Curling 360° – Inclusive Try Curling sessions”. 

Series 2 brings new venues and sessions— wheelchair-specific, inclusive sessions, and one specifically for those with visual impairments!

These sessions are designed for those who have yet to experience curling on ice or are very newcomers to the sport and would like to give it a try.

To book a session, please head to www.trycurling.com and get a space ASAP.

Spaces are limited, and bookings will close two days before each event.

More information is available from Rhiannon Butterfield, Disability and Inclusion Development Officer, by calling 07756 555028 or emailing rhiannon@scottishcurling.org.

By William Moncrieff, Communications Coordinator 

The latest cohort has just been accepted onto the Young Start programme. This time around the programme is experiencing a first, with two former mentees becoming mentors. 

One mentee-turned-mentor is Laura Pilkington. Laura joined the programme back in 2018 and is excited to get started. 

“The last few years I think I’ve developed into more leadership skills and roles, and I really wanted to give something back. I just wanted to use my skills and my experiences to support someone else and give back in that sense.” 

This desire to give back and share experiences is something that mentee-turned-mentor, Gemma Lumsdaine, agrees with: “I am hoping that through my own experience that I have developed through a number of things within my career and also my lived experience and understanding will help support young people.” 

The Young Start programme is a year-long opportunity that helps young individuals aged between 16 – 24 with physical, learning and sensory disabilities throughout Scotland, to develop their confidence and coaching skills. The Young Start programme will help mentees gain a coaching qualification or equivalent CPD. The young people will have a mentor that will support them throughout the experience. For Laura, who was at university at the time, this was one of her highlights. 

“I had quite low confidence, so I was doing this course and I didn’t think I was able to do it. So being able to speak to my mentee about things and get that support with what I was learning was really good.” 

Along with gaining access to and working through a coaching qualification, the year provided lots more for Laura and Gemma. 

“I thought the experience was great and for me the skills that I learnt and particularly the workshops are things I’ve used to this day”, said gemma.  

“They have been fundamental in helping me get to where I am career wise.”  

Laura agreed with this, explaining: “I know the qualification is one of the big things with the programme, but I think the soft skills that you get throughout it, like confidence, communication, leadership skills and meeting other people with a disability is one of the main things about the programme.” 

For many people the programme has helped progress and find a new passion or career. 

“The programme gave me so much and if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have got involved with so many things. I think that it was really the steppingstone to getting me so involved in disability sport”, shared Laura. 

For Laura, the programme also helped her in many other ways. “Near the end when I was on the Young Start, I actually left Aberdeen and university and I moved home and that is when I transferred (Universities). I was struggling quite a lot when I was in Aberdeen and having a programme like the Young Start to do and have that purpose and to feel like I was contributing to something was good.” 

The available opportunities through the programme for young disabled individuals in sport, is what Gemma views as being key, with it being reported that 2% of the qualified coaching workforce has a disability. 

“I think the programme is so important. We know the statistics around the lack of representation around the sports workforce and so programmes like this are a massive enabler”, said Gemma. 

“It’s so important to have people with lived experience at the forefront, particularly when looking at mentorship.” 

The mentors play such an important role in the year. This is why Gemma is keen to progress on with her mentee: “I’ve known mine for a very long time, they are involved in the sports group I go to. I think it will be good because although I’ve known them for a long time, we will find out new things about each other and we will push each other to learn.” 

Although Laura doesn’t know her mentee from before, she is looking forward to helping them throughout their journey. 

“For me, it’s developing that relationship and trying to find out what their goals are and how I can support them to get towards that.” 

Laura views the year as not only being an opportunity for the mentees to learn but for the mentors to find out new knowledge. Laura said: “I think that working with the other mentors and learning from them will be really beneficial.”