With the Paralympics kicking off in Tokyo, what better way than to go behind the scenes of what it has taken for some of the athletes to reach their sporting potential and inspire others to do the same. Jonathan Peacock, an amputee sprinter won gold at the 2012 London Paralympics and 2016 Rio Paralympics. Since the para athletes' success at these games, the UK Government has given the go ahead for amputee children to be prescribed blades from the NHS. Jonnie says, “The only problem with this is that children have not been trained how to use them to reach their full sporting potential.” So Jonnie has introduced Blade Camp, he will use state of the art technology, expert coaching and determination to enable children to train to use their blades to their full potential.
Para athletes have to overcome a great deal of adversity, amputee arms, legs or being born with a disorder that makes life more difficult, what is consistent is the mind set of all amputee children and para athletes is how much motivation, courage, determination they have to succeed. Even in the face of adversity they are willing to try, endeavour to be better even though they know they are going to have to work incredibly hard to achieve their goal, this in itself is inspiring. Jonnie Peacock mentions that he had to get on with it when he lost leg to meningitis at the age of 5, he doesn’t want other kids to have to just get on with it, he wants them to have support and know that they are not alone… so Blade Camp was born.
More About Blade Camp...
The introduction of prescribed blades for amputees is an amazing opportunity for amputee children to be included in sporting activities that they want to participate in, independently, this is something a lot of people take for granted because we are not in that situation. Blade Camp is truly an incredible opportunity run by Jonnie for 5 children to learn from him, expert coaches and learn from others who are in the exact same situation. Motion capture sensors are used to understand how amputees move, from the analysis experts can detect any weaknesses in muscles or imbalances in the body, this information can then dictate their personalised training programmes to make these weaknesses a strength.
How We Took Inspiration & Created Answer Perfect...
What an opportunity I hear you cry, but where does Answer Perfect come into this? Our aim was to enable students to learn how to answer extended questions and give them the training aids they need using expert teachers, and technology at their own pace to personalise their training. Auto intelligent tracking systems identify weaknesses in students' knowledge and understanding enabling staff, students and parents to access revision resources to turn a weakness into a strength.
As an examiner for a decade, we consistently saw students unable to access high marks on the extended questions, this frustrated us and we thought about how much teachers have to pack in to a two year GCSE or A level examination course and realised that students may not know how to answer exam questions even if they know the course content. They may not be able to apply their knowledge to specific examination questions because they have not been trained to do so. To solve this problem Answer Perfect was born, to guide students worldwide to have access and support to specific online resources to enable students to perform better in their examinations.
With the help and support from others, Blade Camp and Answer Perfect have the same aim to instil confidence and train students to fulfil their full potential whether it is in sporting performance or examination performance. We are here for you! Sign up today for support and guidance, and get access to a free 21 day trial here, or for further information regarding our learning platform please fill in our contact form here.