It is sad in a way that we must have a national campaign to focus on putting the child first in coaching. This should be a principle and maybe I was lucky to have three years of learning how to be a teacher that specialised in Physical Education. Teaching in Inner-city Birmingham and coaching participation and performance basketball to both males and females.
At that time the Bunker and Thorpe model of “teaching Games for Understanding” was emerging and the basic principle was learned through the game and let them play their way! More activity more learning.
When I first started teaching, I would get “When can we play a game sir?” so we started with the game, mainly conditioned i.e. smaller sided or imbalanced to improve a skill or tactical problem but always game-related and rarely drills although there is a time for drills but not in lines passing backwards and forwards – when do you do that in a game?
Looking then at John Wooden the legendary basketball coach who talked about drills. But when looking at his work it was all game-based and about getting everyone involved as much as possible as he said, “You don’t get better on the bench”.
Don’t coaches know best? They have been educated in the skills and techniques of the sport and done their three-hour safeguarding? This is maybe 35 hours of training. well, I did three years of teaching and coaching and still didn’t know enough about sociology i/e/ motivations of children and the sociology of child development after passing degree-level modules. So how can we expect coaches to understand technique the craft of coaching and most importantly how children develop? This has been particularly highlighted through Covid and how the lack of social development has been stunted through lack of socialisation particularly with Primary school children who were the least connected in lockdown to their friends who at that age are the most important thing in their lives.
The 'Play their Way' campaign and particularly the Childrens Coaching Collaborative (CCC) seek to address this massive missing link. The CCC has headlines of Choice-Voice-Journey. But what does that mean to coaches?
Choice – This is about children deciding what they do and when. The dominance of one sport because that demands more aerobic time doesn’t consider other aerobic activities they maybe doing. For example, why spend 10-plus hours a week ploughing up and down a swimming pool if they are also a top middle-distance runner? Or loads of time doing football tactics when the principles of invasion games can be applied in Hockey, Netball or Basketball. It’s all the same width and depth and how do you attack space, defend space and transition between the two?
Voice - This must be about listening to the child., through evaluating their feedback and maybe through youth panels or regular meetings you can listen to how they are enjoying the activity. I have recently seen some dreadful practice for young people to increase their training hours at the time they are deep in revision for GCSE or “A” levels or even when they have a music grading exam coming up. So, we must listen to the child.
Journey - What is their life journey and how does one sport fit into this? If they are talented, they will be motivated and resilient at that sport but please don’t let coaches make that choice alone. Early specialisation leads to burnout in most cases. 98% of players in Premier League Academies never play in the Premier League. It should be the child, parent, coach and teacher.
I have carried out low-level research at many levels over the years into Children’s motivation. Firstly, as the Young People SDO for Birmingham in the early ‘90s, in focus groups with Proctor and Gamble planning the massively successful Sunning Delight 3v3 for basketball and most recently for the Club Matters workshop “participant experience”. The motivations haven’t changed much. Children do sport first and foremost for the “F” word FUN, then to be with their existing or to form new friendships. Thirdly, they want to improve, they like competition and are not too motivated by winning. Can you remember the results of this week when you were a thirteen-year-old? If not, it shows it wasn’t that important, but I bet you remember the fun you had and who you had it with. I have also found over the years children remember the social element of sports activity as much as the competition.
However, what are the coaches’ motivations? They tend to be the reverse with winning. medals or high achievement of a small number is the key motivation. I worry when coaches talk about a small number who have “gone on” rather than the number still doing that sport. For me, it isn’t the Professional footballers I have coached it's Jonathan, Robert and Latessa who I remember most.
Jonathan was the first autistic boy I taught, completely insular and he got the sports “bug”, as we all did at some point, through Cross-country, he challenged himself and became part of, not through his achievement, but his quiet determination he became part of the cross-country team that won the West Mids championships and every boy cheered him home and thirty years or so on he completed the Birmingham Half Marathon and still has the joy of running. Robert is dyspraxia and couldn’t catch a cold. I spent time with Robert, and I still remember the day he caught a softball in the deep and all the class celebrated, he went on to be a professional wrestler, what a journey. Finally, Latessa, her mother and her farther were in prison for drug dealing and she was being brought up by her grandmother in inner-city Birmingham, she came to my Junior Basketball squad and was 6 foot at 16. We worked with Latessa, and the senior squad mentored her as similar Black women who had gone through challenges. She played basketball until she had children and never got into trouble. Her journey was the most challenging but most rewarding.
Do we walk the walk as well as talk the talk at Sport Structures? Well yes we do, we have through the expert team developed new units for coaches either as part of their core development as level two coaches more on listening and improving the “coaching craft” of feedback and facilitated learning through listening to participants and this will also be available as CPD as coaches should never stop learning not just technique and tactics but understanding child development and their craft of coaching them as individuals and not as part of a conveyor belt.
So, let’s start with Fun and the game and make sure we listen to children and where they are at, they are not mini-adults and must have a childhood across many things not just sport, but the sport has a vital role in their personal development as citizens of the future. Sport teaches children life skills of timekeeping, progressive development, friendship, the importance of dealing with winning and losing, resilience and most important, FUN!
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