About Us

Meet Coach Ben

Coach Ben is the Director and Coach of Team Up Multisports and is 33 years old. Ben has run after school sport clubs at Bishop Gilpin since September 2013 and has also worked at the school as a Midday Supervisor between December 2017 - March 2024 so the children should all know him well! 

Ben has a 2:1 in Education, a level 3 Higher Sports Leader Award and a level 1 FA football coaching badge. He is qualified as a Paediatric first aider and is DBS checked. Ben last completed annual training on anaphylaxis, asthma, epilepsy and safeguarding as part of his work at Bishop Gilpin in September 2023 and has started a level 3 designated safeguarding lead course, which he plans on completing soon.  

The Beginnings...

Coach Ben ran after school clubs at Bishop Gilpin Primary School as London Sports Academy between 2013-2021 with the clubs known more commonly as Mini-Olympics. When London Sports Academy were ready for a re-brand for their holiday clubs, Ben decided to create Team Up Multisports for the after school club service provided at Bishop Gilpin. Team Up Multisports Ltd was formed on 19th June 2021 and the first clubs were run in September 2021. Team Up Multisports is run in a smiliar way as London Sports Academy by offering children the opportunity to take part in a different sport each week, however we differentiate by having a keener focus on friendship values and how friendships and sports can link together, which is a key component of each session. 

I am proud to have coached over 200 different children at Bishop Gilpin in our short 3 year period as Team Up Multisports and to have contributed in excess of £20,000 (12k+ as LSA and 8k+ as TUM) to the school for hiring out the facilities over the years.

Why we believe friendship values are so important in sports

We believe strongly in our motto 'Sports Enhance Friendships. Friendships Enhance Sports'. Each session we have a friendship value focus with the aim of showing children how thinking about this value can help both their friendships and their sporting performance. This is a main focus of sessions and the reason I believe so strongly in this is due to my own personal expereiences. I learnt a lot of social and character building skills through sports growing up and my closest friendships have been built through teams and sports too.

By thinking about how children can improve their friendships through sport, it can make sport a more enjoyable experience and improve the atmosphere that sports can be played in which has a positive impact on retention. Playing sports with friends is often the most enjoyable and can help children to become more resiliant and push eachother on to try their best and improve their individual and team performances. Sports often make friendship bonds and teamwork even stronger too.

We think about and look out for children that might eb hesitant about taking part and use friendship values to create an encouraging enviornment for them to become more confident in taking part. We will use already strong friendship bonds to encourage those that are shy or anxious about taking part. We will look out for children that don't have obvious friendship groups and give them encouragement to make new friends and join new friendship groups from the start. As well as coaches looking out for this we also encourage children to help look out for children that may need more support themselves. We remind children to look out for others that may be sad to ask and help them to feel better and be inclusive.

We recognise the importance of the social side to sport and will actively encourage children to have opportunities to socialise during natural breaks in the session. If done correctly, children will see sport as a fun social activity that will stay with them as a motivation to continue sport in later life. This is what we aim to provide and the use of friendship values and strengthening friendships is a key component of this too.

What children can gain from multi sport

We believe strongly that at a younger age, children should have the access to experience as many different sports as possible. We aim to create an enjoyable atmosphere for children to partake in many sports to give children the opportunity to find a new favourite sport which they can then focus on more specifically when they get older.

A fun and engaging multi sport club can take away the fear of trying new sports. Quite often we see that in popular sports that children have regular access to (such as Football) you have a gulf in ability levels which can demotivate those that are newer to the sport. Having a variety of sports means there will often be a sport that many have not tried before which can maintain interest in trying others too. Part of our resiliance focus is that children try their best in the sports they are less familiar with having the knowledge that a new sport will be tried the next week.

Partaking in different sports can often improve their fundamental movement skills which link to their favoured sport too. Many sports use similar balance, locomotive and object control skills and learning these skills in different contexts often helps improve these skills in a greater way.