Final Reflection

Final reflection

Below are the weaknesses I had at the beginning of this reflection cycle:

W) When I am coaching a new group of people I get nervous. This is because I don’t know anyone and therefore as first sessions are about making positive impressions to people taking part or watching a coach needs to do everything correctly.

W) The drills I do may become repetitive meaning I use them regularly and for participants this may become boring. This happens because I find it hard to discover new drills and games for sessions I coach weekly. I look over the google and youtube to find videos of drills but find it difficult to find ones I can use with the group I coach.

 

My first weakness talks about my nerves when coaching which relates to my confidence. All in all I feel I have become more confident as the year has gone on. There will always be nerves when coaching infront of new participants however I hope that my experience in America over the summer will help my counter these nerves as I am hoping coaching infront of new participants will become second nature by the time I am in year three.

 

My second weakness discusses repetitive coaching, I would no longer class this as a weakness of mine. Over the year I feel I have gained a large amount of new drills which I can now use within coaching, these have come through watching other coaches during practical sessions and during the challenger training weekend. I am now confident with the amount of drills I can use when coaching. I have also learnt how to adapt various drills to different age groups therefore I am learning how to adapt the way I coach.

 

Looking back on the year I feel that the reflection has done my coaching good as I can see clear improvements. Without the reflection I would not learn from my mistakes and therefore never improve.

Review of coaching the football team

Review of coaching the football team

Looking back at the season just gone I can say that there has been clear improvements for the football team. Firstly since last year the team has developed and matured, we are cutting out mistakes and playing like a team who want to win every week. Not only does this reflect with the performances on the pitch, but it also reflects in the league table. Last season the team finished 4^th in the league, whereas this year the team have finished 2^nd which is a good achievement and provides good ambitions for next year.

I feel that as my coaching has improved and my tactical awareness of the game has improved, it has reflected in the performance of the team. In a previous blog post I talked about how I have used feedback to improve player’s performances and how I am reflecting mentally after each coaching session which in turn has improved the coaching sessions.

I can thank this reflection process and can say it has benefited the team I coach. Compared to last year my coaching method has improved and the way I now deliver a coaching session is far better to what it used to be. Players are receiving good coaching sessions which they both enjoy and learn from.

Challenger Coaching session

Challenger weekend coaching assessment

As part of the weekend a coaching assessment took place for the directors to see each coaches coaching style and to make sure we fit in with their way of coaching. Pre selected coaching topics were given out and I had to come up with a session on dribbling. For this session I had to come up with a warm up, unopposed games and opposed games. My session went as follows:

Warm up: each participant has a ball and dribbles round the grid set up focusing on the two coaching points which are keeping close control of the ball and keeping your head up rather than rooted on the ball.

I had then planned two unopposed games, the first one had five gates in a grid and the aim of the game was to dribble the ball through the gates whilst focusing on the two coaching points from the warm up.

 

 

 

The second unopposed game was the same as the first one but this time included a new coaching point which was acceleration. Whenever someone goes through a gate they must accelerate out as if they were running past a player. 

The opposed game then focused on all three coaching points of close control, keeping your head up and acceleration. For this game, the gates were taken out and defenders were put in. The defenders are there to put the participants dribbling with the ball under pressure and think about keeping control on the ball whilst accelerating past the defender.

After the session was complete the director watching over me talked to me regarding how I coached the session. He said that the content was great and I went over the correct coaching points but he found I was too stationary for the majority of the time I was coaching. Once he has said this I understood what he was saying. Normally when I am coaching, I coach adults therefore rarely have to get involved in the sessions unless things go wrong. Therefore when I am conducting my regular coaching sessions I am just stood on the side observing. I need to understand that when coaching children I need to be involved and enthusiastic, therefore not just stood observing. Now that I know I am stationary I can now work on improving this matter and becoming more involved with my sessions. 

Challenger training weekend

Challenger training weekend

Before leaving to go to America in the summer, every coach has to attend a training weekend which was held during the Easter holidays. It was held over a weekend, starting on the Friday and going through to the Sunday. The aim of this weekend is to teach the new coaches (me) their styles of coaching and their curriculum.

On arrival I signed in and went into a class room with my region, here they told us the plan of the weekend which lasted roughly 15 minutes and then we was straight out onto the fields. During the morning session we learnt about the first kicks and mini soccer camps which range from the ages of 3-6 years old. Regional Directors explained challenges of working with this age group and demonstrated fundamental activities and games from the First Kicks curriculum, demonstrations on the mini soccer ABC’s (Agility, Balance and Coordination) and games were shown. We then had a break for lunch before going back out on the fields for the afternoon session. The afternoon session consisted of a typical half day camp, with this the regional directors went over everything including structure, organisation, voice, body, enthusiasm, ABC’s and individual foot skill development, fakes moves and turns and technical coaching progression. This was a lot to take in during one afternoon but it helped having coaching experience and being on a sport coaching degree as the majority of information I have already learnt.

Once day one was complete I felt happy with how the day went, I had learnt some new drills and ways of coaching, I felt confident with my own ability and delivering sessions to children aged 3-6 based on the demonstrations shown and was looking forward to what day two had installed.

 

Day two started off looking into camp operations which was a classroom based session for the whole morning session. Here we learnt about camp programs, daily/weekly operations/routines, how to open and close a camp, how to complete a participant evaluation, water break activities and how the weekly world cup tournament runs, therefore the morning session looking into the general roles and responsibilities. During the afternoon session we was back out on the fields, this time the directors lead coaches through each stage of the progression and coaches allowed us to take coaching sessions to see our coaching styles. We also looked into the tetra Brazil and freestyle soccer camps which have a different way of coaching. In these sessions it was very much instruction based coaching by using demonstrations. For the freestyle camps the coach demonstrates a skill step by step and then the participants follow what the coaches show them. Once day two was complete I was very happy with what I was learning throughout the weekend.

 

My overall views on the training weekend were positive, I enjoyed my time and learnt new ways of coaching and new drills which I can now use in my existing coaching groups. However I feel that all the information was abit of an overload for two days. We were bombarded with information whether it be practical or theory based therefore there is a lot to remember from this weekend.

Preseason cricket coaching

During the Easter holidays I tried to volunteer for some extra coaching session in football to gain more experience in the coaching world. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any football clubs to help out so I decided to aid Astwood bank cricket club. As it wasn’t quite the summer cricket season we had to fit my session into the preseason schedule.

I knew this could be quite a challenge as I am use to coaching football in a controlled manner because I am confident in both the technical and tactical side of the game. However when coaching cricket I am not fully confident. As I am not as confident at coaching cricket I decided in my plan to take a different approach. After learning about some of the different coaching approaches in the theory lessons I chose to try out a guided discovery method.

My session was on how to bowl full onto the stumps. My session was first planned for 5 different bowlers but 3 of them didn’t turn up to preseason training. This meant I had to change the activity to one more suitable for the number I had. I started getting them bowling laying down areas on the crease and asked them to get the ball into the areas.

One of the bowlers was struggling on both his handling and his stance when bowling the ball. Previously I would have stopped the session and demonstrated the right technique. However I stayed as I planned on a guided discovery approach using questioning and answering to the performer. I believed that this would work as McShane, K. (2002) that this approach is all about the performer helping themselves find their own solution. I felt this approach worked well with my activity because it allows the performer to constantly practice a technique.

Reflecting on this session I feel that my risk paid off in many ways. I believe that the bowlers enjoyed the freedom that was given to them and the session flowed well because of this. Another way the session went positively is the way the performers were left to discover their own solution to finding the areas or targets I set up. Finally I thought I enjoyed the session and were positive and showed good motivation when the bowlers needed it. One thing I would plan for next time is further progression as one of the bowlers started to find the technique and skill sooner than the other. However it was a great experience coaching a different in another coaching approach and will try to use problem solving and guided discovery in the future

References

McShane, K. (2002) Coaching youth soccer: the European model Pp102

St Georges Park

St Georges park field trip

On Friday 15^th March the university put on a trip to St Georges Park, the new world class facility for The FA. I was looking forward to going on this trip as I am a football player myself, and therefore enjoy seeing world class facilities which professional athletes use. Below is a list of the facilities at St Georges Park:

·         Indoor 3G pitch – 120m x 80m building, accommodating a full-size 105m x 68m artificial football pitch equipped with a 200 person viewing gallery.

·         Running track – located adjacent to the indoor 3G pitch, the 60m sprint track features a specialist power plate which can track the speed, gait and running characteristics of athletes.

·         Indoor hall – 60m x 40m with sprung floor and capacity for Futsal, hockey, plus football pitches for the partially-sighted.

·         Sports Medicine Centre – St. George’s Park has its own world-class sports and exercise medicine, human performance and research centre called Perform, part of Spire Healthcare Sports Facilities St. George’s Park has world-class sports facilities which will facilitate sporting excellence.

·         External pitches – 11 external pitches, five of which have floodlighting and undersoil heating. The pitches will accommodate full-size and seven-a-side elite football and coaching for all age groups.

·         Goalkeeping areas – dedicated practice and training area for goalkeepers

·         Training hill – 30m outdoor training and fitness hill positioned at a 20 degree angle for fitness and conditioning.

·         Sports Pavilions – four external pitch side pavilions are available for briefings, training analysis and debriefings. Some with changing and catering facilities.

When looking around the facilities, it is a real eye opener at what sport and football has become. One of the things that amazed me was the main football pitch used by the England national team which is an exact replica to the pitch inside Wembley Stadium. At the time the pitch was being mowed and the guide said within the hour the pitch at Wembley will also be mowed so the length of the grass is the same at all times. This made me think a lot about how much can be done to assist sporting performance from world class coaching, to the use of the best equipment to the mowing of grass to ensure the variables of training and competing are as similar as possible.

Below are some quotes made by former England Striker Alan Shearer about the facility:

“At the end of the day we all want a better England team that can go on and challenge and win World Cups and European Championships. I’m pretty sure that this place will help that, not only with improving the standards of the players but also with improving the standards of coaches. I’m pretty sure it won’t be immediately and it will take time but if people are patient then I’m sure we will be rewarded in the years to come.”

It is clear that within international football everybody wants to be like the Spanish due to their outstanding ability and ways of playing football. For England to get to that standard the building and introduction of St Georges park is a start to the process, but as said by Alan Shearer it won’t happen immediately. When looking at the process which is needed to make this progression it will include coaches of all levels all over the country. It will include all levels of the traditional sports development continuum by Hylton et al (2001).

 

 

 

To create a better England team the FA must look into all levels of this continuum, starting at the Foundation level, improving the level of coaching and the quality of coaching and then making their way up to the Excellence level – finding ways to better the quality of coaching to ensure players get top quality coaching allowing them to improve as much as possible. By doing this the standard of players reaching the top excellence level should be of better quality.

 

Reference list:

Hylton, K. Totten, M. (2001) Developing ‘sport for all?’ addressing inequality in sport, in K. hylton and P.Bramham et al/ (eds) Sports development: Policy, Process and Practice, 1^st Edition, London: Routledge.

http://www.thefa.com/st-georges-park

Feedback to participants

When wanting to improve athletes feedback is very important. Athletes need to be provided with feedback if they want to improve their technical and tactical sides of performance. ‘Feedback alone provides sufficient information for skill learning to occur’ (Jones et al, 2008) therefore it is up to a coach to provide this sufficient information for skill learning to occur. Since reading this quote I have tried to evaluate how I provide feedback to athletes. I did this my remembering experiences within the football team I coach.

The first example was a midfield playmaker, whenever he received the ball he often carried or passed the ball back into the congested areas of the field. During half time I spoke to the player and told him what he was doing. I then told him when receiving the ball focus on switching the ball to the opposite side of play where the space is likely to be. During the second half I saw a massive improvement, every time the player received the ball he looked up and passes the ball into space rather than the crowded areas. This not only had an improvement on that player’s game, it also saw an improvement to the team’s game as goals were scored due to the switching of play.

Another example was a player who lacked confidence while shooting. Prior to a match this player would always be taking shots and depending how good his shooting was before the game often had an effect on his shooting during the game, if it was poor beforehand it would be poor during the game too. I spoke to the player and told him instead of shooting before a match, aim for the crossbar. By doing this the target is reduced massively and so are the expectations of hitting the target. But if the player hit the crossbar he would then be confident as he has hit a small target. This is a good psychological tactic, and it paid off during the match. The player’s confidence during the match was far better when aiming for the crossbar and once this feedback was given to the player, his shooting improved and he scored more goals.

It is very important that coaches provide feedback to their performers as and when they see it.

These types of feedback sound very simples pieces of coaching but it is important to understand that a performer doesn’t always see things as simply as a spectator. The job I did was take simple observations and convert them to help improve a performer whether it be through tactical play or psychological. If I didn’t provide these types of feedback to the performers they would still be under performing to their potential.

Review of semester one

Review of semester one

Below is part of my very first blog post shows my aims and objectives:

'What are your main aims/objectives for the module (based on point 1)?

 

My main aims for this module are to reflect on every coaching session I coach. Every time I post a weakness on a coaching session, I hope to reflect on this weakness and see how I can improve on it and reduce the chance of it happening again. Such as being more prepared, more informative etc. Having spoken about my weaknesses above, I also want to look at these and once the module is over, hope that these are no longer weaknesses of mine.'

Being half way through the course I am going to reflect on semester one and talk about how I feel I have done in relation to my first blog objectives.

Firstly it is to be said that I have not posted major amounts of blogs during semester one. However this does not mean that I haven’t been reflecting on my coaching.

Since I know I have to reflect on my coaching I feel I have improved with the way I delivery my coaching sessions and I feel generally more confident whilst coaching. After a session I will often reflect to myself in my head on how the session went which is a new experience to me as I have never done this before. I feel that this is why I am becoming more confident. By doing this, if I make an error during a coaching session I am reflection upon in immediately whereas before this reflection process, I would probably not think about it and let errors pass by. When reflecting upon errors made, I look into how they occurred and what I could have done to prevent them happening. It is always the case that minor changes to my coaching could have changed these errors and therefore since I have reflected – I can see the errors happening less and less.

For example – I was coaching a drill which no one understood, but I insisted that the drill will continue which took more time than it was worth looking back on it, which took up valuable coaching time. From this I learnt that I should plan more than enough for each coaching session, by doing this if drills are too hard then I can change to a plan B and swiftly move on which saves time during the coaching session.

Therefore overall I feel I am on target with my aims and objectives set at the beginning of the year, I am reflecting on every session in which I lead and by doing this, I am seeing clear improvements in my coaching styles and the ways I deliver a session. I am happy with the way in which I am reflecting after a session but I must remember to post about it rather than just thinking about it.

Critical discussion

My critical discussion

Before going on to talk about how my critical discussion went, I am firstly going to talk about how I preferred this type of assignment.

The critical discussion I feel is a better type of assignment than a typical essay or presentation. It allows a number of people to talk over past events and express their feelings. When writing an essay I feel I often get stuck on what to write, but in this type of assignment feelings come out more and it’s easier to express feelings with the group rather than focusing on academic writing.

For the assignment we had to conduct a practical session and then evaluate how it went.

Prior to the delivery of the coaching session we had planned what and how we were going to coach. We then discussed how we were going to review and evaluate our session once it had taken place. As I have been on the sports analysis module I felt the best way to evaluate our session was to film it and then use the Coaching cycle by Hughes et al (2008). This cycle shows how analysis can be incorporated into the reviewing of a session. It provides objective data as video footage shows the events as and when they happened. Because of this we decided that one of the members of the group will film the session.

 

 

This choice paid off as after the coaching session we watched the recorded footage and analysed our session. We then prepared notes and academic research for the discussion.

Once in the discussion I feel it ran very smoothly, we talked over our strengths, weaknesses and how we could improve the session which was a great way to reflect upon a coaching session. For this assignment I received a mark of 65% which I was very happy with.

Even though my discussion went well, there could be issues with this type of assessment. Depending on who’s in your group, there could be one member who prefers talking and therefore other members of the group could be shadowed out and find it hard to get their points across and therefore costing themselves marks.

References

Hughes, M. Franks, I. (2008) The essentials of performance analysis, an indrocuction. Pp3 and 4.