Qualification - Certificate In Recreation

Do you work with people in the community? Work as a sport and recreation officer!  

Do you want to expand your skills and knowledge of how to plan recreation programs for children and adults?

Choose a career that will get you outdoors, keep you active, allow for opportunities to work with people and have fun, for example go adventure climbing, get involved in fitness and sports development and be responsible for event managment!

This excellent course has many dimensions and the focus is broad. It involves 30 lessons plus practical assignments covering the nature and scope of leisure studies, recreation, leadership principles and practices, fitness and fitness testing, managing recreation facilities, first aid, staff supervision and management, marketing, budgeting, tourism, youth leadership, sports, crafts, environmental activities, organising exhibitions and more.

The course structure:

1.    Introduction to Recreation   

2.    The Nature and Scope of Recreation

3.    History of Recreation           

4.    Planning Recreation Programs

5.    Leadership

6.    Introduction to Fitness

7.    Fitness Testing 

8.    Developing an Exercise Program

9.    Herb Crafts 

10.   Planning for Recreation Facilities

11.   Parks and Playgrounds 

12.   Play leadership

13.   Recreation for Special Populations 

14.   Sports in Recreation

15.   Introduction to Gardening   

16.   Gardening in Recreation

17.   Tourism            

18.   Understanding People

19.   Communication skills A. 

20.   Communication Skills B.

21.   Photography and Recreation  

22.   Environmental Studies

23.   Environmental Activities  

24.   Youth Leadership

25.   First Aid         

26.   Office Management

27.   Staff Supervision      

28.   Organising an Event

29.   Marketing       

30.   Budgeting

Extract from Course Notes

LEADERSHIP

Leadership is important in society.

Leaders are needed, and found in all aspects of our daily life, from the workplace to the school ground; and from the social club to government.

When leadership is good, there is an increased probability of things being achieved with greater efficiency, and a higher level of satisfaction among all concerned.

Good leadership is however not something a person is born with.

Certain personal traits, such as self confidence, may give some an advantage over others; but effective leadership requires more than simply a forceful personality that is capable of dominating everyone else.

A leader is not the same as a manager or supervisor!

Managers and supervisors are able to cause things to happen because they have legal authority to enforce orders.

Leaders do not cause things to happen because of any legal authority.

People follow leaders of their own free will; and leadership skills are those skills that allow a leader to effectively communicate with, and influence the actions of their followers

Leadership contributes to order, motivates productivity, and influences the way in which resources (human and material) are used.

Leaders are people who are in a position of power, and who use that position to influence the environment in which they abide, and the others who share that environment.

Positive leadership enables things to happen. The leader in effect influences the environment in a way that encourages certain actions.

Negative leadership disables things from happening.

Leaders have an affect upon the environment through different types of actions:

• By setting goals (eg. time limits, production standards, budgets, etc)
• By determining values (eg. levels of quality, ethical behaviour, reliability, etc)
• By establishing concepts (eg. different ways of doing things, project reviews, new management approaches)

In a recreational context good leadership encourages and inspires both staff and participants to extend their recreational experience whilst at the same time ensuring safety practices that limit personal risk.

LEADERSHIP CONCEPTS

The way you conceive the role of a “leader” may differ from one situation to the next.

Don’t think of one concept as being correct and others incorrect.

Simply use different concepts to help you understand the role which a leader should play, according to each different situation you confront.

A popular concept is that a leader is an "enabler" (ie. someone who enables others to experience something). In his book, "Recreation Today", Richard Kraus gives the following criteria to help identify recreation leadership as a profession:

a. General acceptance in the field.

b. A specific body of knowledge.

c. The existence of basic research in the field

d. Professional higher education.

e. Certification in the field.

f. Professional standards.

g. Recruitment

h. Professional organisation.

i. A code of ethics.

Another concept is that a successful leader would be someone who does the following:

1. Determine a process that needs to be improved

2. Conceive a way of improving that process.

3. Share your concept for improvement.

4. Provide resources and guidance for others to act

5. Show others what to do (A leader participates in doing it, a manager just gives orders)

6. Provide encouragement –reward performance, even if only by giving verbal praise.

Why Study with ACS?

ACS follows the old fashioned idea that “the student comes first”. Our staff are told to treat every student as an individual and respond promptly to their enquiries; and the facilities we have developed and continue to develop, are all focused on that goal. Facilities include:

• Offices in two time zones (UK and Australia) –which means an international team of academics are responding to students 5 days a week and 16 hours a day.
• An online student room with unique resources that are only available to students studying our courses, including online library.
• Bookshop offering quality downloadable e books
• A data base of 20 million words of unique information written by our staff over 3 decades that can be drawn upon if needed by academics for use in supporting our students.
• Systems that ensure assignments are tracked, marked and returned to students, fast -commonly within a round 1 week & rarely more than 2 weeks (note: many other colleges take longer).
• The school is active in social networking and encourages students to connect with us and each other.
• No automated handling of student phone enquiries. When you call you get a real person; or leave a message and a real person will call you back within a day, but more commonly within an hour or two.
• No additional charges for extra tutor support over the phone or email.
• Free careers advice for graduates –It is our policy to provide support and advice to our students even after they graduate. If a graduate needs help with getting a CV together, or advice on setting up a business or looking for work; they only need ask.
• The quality of academic staff is higher than many other colleges.

 How our Courses Differ

• Courses are continually improved –we invite feedback from all graduates and change courses immediately the need is detected.
• Courses are relevant to the whole world –we try hard to teach make the learning transferable to any region or country because the world is increasingly a global economy
• Courses written by our staff, teach different skills to standard courses; giving a unique mix of skills and knowledge to provide a career advantage. Do you want an accredited certificate and the same skills as 100 other job applicants; or one of our courses with skills that no other applicants have?
• Certificates and diplomas are longer. They teach you more, and our qualifications have built a reputation amongst academics and industry as being a very high standard for this reason.
• We are focused on helping you learn in a way that improves your capacity to understand your discipline, apply knowledge, and continue learning and developing your capabilities beyond your course.

These things cannot be always said of other colleges.

Career Opportunities

Study alone can never guarantee career success; but a good education is an important starting point.

Success in a career depends upon many things. A course like this is an excellent starting point because it provides a foundation for continued learning, and the means of understanding and dealing with issues you encounter in the workplace.

When you have completed an ACS course, you will have not only learnt about the subject, but you will have been prompted to start networking with experts in the discipline and shown how to approach problems that confront you in this field.

This and every other industry in today’s world is developing in unforeseen ways; and while that is unsettling for anyone who wants to be guaranteed a particular job at the end of a particular course; for others, this rapidly changing career environment is offering new and exciting opportunities almost every month.

If you want to do the best that you can in this industry, you need to recognise that the opportunities that confront you at the end of a course, are probably different to anything that has even been thought of when you commence a course.

BOOKS

Visit our School bookshop at www.acsebook.com

• Downloadable ebooks that can be read on ipads, PC’s, Laptops, or readers like a Kindle.
• Titles are written by our principal and staff.
• Anyone can purchase books –ACS students are offered a student discount

Go on, start today and take the first step to a career out of the ordinary! You could progress into leisure facility management, run tourist trips and adventure tours, become a co-ordinator of child care programs responsible for planning and development, work in a care setting for the elderly or disadvantaged youth ... the opportunities are endless..!