Summer is often synonymous with relaxation, beaches and relaxation. Summer is also, and unfortunately, the beginning of the school year is approaching. For many young people, this is the doubt: “What to do next September? Do I have to work? Do I have to study? ».
For some, it will be a sports facilitator or educator, but a question remains: “How do I find an employer who will agree to finance my work-study program? ».
Stephane Allain-Dupré, trainer at Trans-Faire and holder of a STAPS licence and a Master’s degree in education and training, therefore gives you her expert advice on how to enter training under optimal conditions.
Find a multi-sport alternating structure
One of the recurring problems is that young people do not have a detailed enough understanding of what is done in training and all the professional situations in which they will have to find themselves. The BPJEPS APT is a training that leads to the profession of sports educator in a multitude of physical and sporting activities (team sports, opposition sports, racketing, outdoor physical activities, gymnastic maintenance activities… etc.)
The young person must therefore target a structure that has activities but also a varied public (children, adolescents and the elderly). Trainees may also consider several work-linked places to meet these needs, but the set-up is more complex.
The employer will be responsible for financing the training. This is therefore an essential first point. And above all, it is necessary to do it well in advance, because the research can be long.
Take into account the geographical area
The geographical area where the alternation structure is located should be given importance. The training is long and it is easier to go to work close to home in order to avoid the fatigue that long transport journeys can create.
In addition, it is necessary to think about the after-training, and to project oneself in an environment that is both geographically accessible and that will allow to develop one’s employment. Employment that often consists of several employers.
Use your network
It is essential not to neglect the contacts made in professional and leisure life. It is very rare to see an advertisement such as: “the Sports Department is looking for a BPJEPS APT intern”. Often, training proposals are made internally, to young people already identified as former practitioners or who are involved in the city’s sports associations with federal diplomas. Employers need qualified and competent educators and do not hesitate to fund training if they count on a young person for the coming years.
Aerial duel between two students!
Organize and take initiatives
Once in training, it is necessary to be proactive. This means that you don’t have to wait for things to happen, or for you to be told systematically what to do. A good professional, whatever the profession, is someone who knows how to do what is asked of him, but who also knows how to do it without being asked.
You should therefore not hesitate to question your tutor and colleagues, to be curious about what is happening in the structure beyond the missions on which the trainee is positioned.
In addition, the BPJEPS requires the production of many written documents. It is therefore necessary to know how to organize yourself and anticipate deadlines so that you do not have to take a course.
The training organisation communicates in several ways with the work-linked structure, but above all it is the trainee who is the guarantor of the correct articulation between theory and practice and the sense he gives to it.
Do not fall into the easy way
The risk is sometimes to fall into the easy, not to make the effort to ask questions about one’s intentions as an educator and to reproduce what one has experienced as a child or what one sees being put in place around one.
Training is precisely the time when we have the right, and the duty, to try things. No one can blame you for making a mistake! Moreover, in sports education, there is never one single good solution, but several. We must therefore try new things, take risks. Some people tend to want to protect themselves. They don’t want to see what their group will send them back if their session is “out of line”. But taking risks is necessary to improve pedagogically and learn to look at yourself….
Step off the podium to enter the labour market
Olympic athlete and three-time world champion in halfpipe skiing, Virginie Faivre will one day have to find a job. The Swiss skier is already thinking about her career transition and – like many other elite athletes – would like Switzerland to do more to facilitate the training of athletes.
It is not the word “retirement” that comes to mind in the first place, when we meet the radiant Virginie Faivre, 33-year-old external link. The freestyler has already started thinking about it in high school.
“My sport is tough on the body and injuries are common,” she explains to swissinfo.ch. “I won’t be able to play this sport all my life. That’s why I always kept in mind that I had to train myself to find a job one day.”
The decision to leave school to devote herself to skiing was a difficult one for the athlete. Virginie Faivre had told her family that she would return to school at age 25. At that age, however, she was too involved in her sport.
An Internet accounting course seemed to him to be a good compromise. However, by the time she completed her three-year training, Virginie Faivre already knew she was never going to be an accountant.
Later, an injury forced her to stop her sporting activity for three months, which allowed her to obtain a “Certificate of Advanced Studies” in sports management at the University of Lausanne.
Virginie Faivre then went on to experience the Olympic adventure of Sochi 2014, which saw her move up to fourth place in the half-pipe event. Since then, she has continued to train but has also embarked on a master’s degree in sports management. She follows this training via the Internet from the Johan Cruyff Institute in Barcelona. “When you are a professional athlete, your experience is considered equivalent to a bachelor’s degree,” explains the athlete.
Study and train
Juggling with studies, training, competition and the search for sponsors is like a real obstacle course, especially in winter. “We travel and sometimes I’m not alone. It is therefore difficult to find the time to study,” notes Virginie Faivre. “We train until two in the afternoon. We have a little break. Then we do physical training almost until dinner time. And in the end, we are tired, which makes it difficult to concentrate.”
The freestyler notes that Switzerland is starting to “do things” to make it easier for athletes to study, but only in the German-speaking cantons.
The concept of a dual career, which allows athletes to harmoniously combine sport with study or work, is promoted by the European Union. The EU recommendations raise awareness among governments, sports bodies, the training community and employees of the need to create an appropriate environment for dual careers.
The EU advocates the establishment of a legal framework and financial support, referring to studies that demonstrate that dual careers have positive effects on the health, development and social life of athletes. These programs also make it easier for athletes to get used to life after sport.