Self Correcting Students – Use Errors Wisely

The teams and classes we teach / coach, all have players with differing rates of progression, as well as varying strengths and weaknesses in their game. How do we keep the entire team improving when there is one of you and a whole squad of them? Encourage them to self correct!

The players that improve the fastest are the ones that are made self-aware of their errors and are able to fix common, repetitive flaws in their own technique, while not necessarily being directly supervised.

To encourage this, the coach or teacher needs to instill in the player the ability to recognise when they themselves are making repetitive errors (whether during unsupervised practice or in a match) and how to fix them.

To encourage ‘self correction’ try the following approach:

• Identify the error (eg ball toss too far forward causing the ball to repetitively hit the net).
• Explain to the player the reason for the repeated error (ball toss is thrown too far forward resulting in a serve hitting the net).
• Demonstrate the correction to the error (Hold the ball slightly longer before releasing and curl the fingers slightly more around the ball).
• Check their understanding, observe a couple of attempts, encourage them to use any future errors to help improve themselves and move onto your next willing subject.

Of course it is wrong to assume that the error will be remedied immediately after you provide the solution. However, you can now happily leave your student. They are now armed with the information regarding what they are doing wrong, what happens when the error occurs, how to fix the flaw and what it looks like when it goes right. Self correction in action!!

Multisport Drill – 10 Passes to Score

Too often we move too quickly to the shooting or goal scoring part of practice. We do not give adequate recognition that it takes an awful lot of skill and effort to arrive into a goalscoring position when playing a ‘real’ game.

A significant challenge to the teacher or coach wanting well rounded players, is that ‘scoring’ is all that many juniors want to do and what many youngsters subsequently value success or failure on. The remedy? Drills that go a long way to replicating the ‘buzz’ of the scoring a goal. Not an easy task, but here’s a goody…

10 Passes to Score

1. Form a rectangular field of dimensions approximately 10m x 5m.
2. Make 2 teams per field of 4-6 players (if using more increase the size of your field).
3. Have 1 or 2 less defenders than attackers on the field.
4. The object of the game is to complete 10 passes in order to score a ‘goal’.
5. If the ball is intercepted or knocked to the ground it goes to the opposition team.
6. The ball cannot be returned to the person who passed the ball to them (no ‘1,2s’).

This drill can be easily used for the following sports:

• Netball
• Basketball (players may have to bounce the ball at least 3 times between passes)
• Soccer (when players trap the ball they cannot be dispossessed)
• Hockey (when players trap the ball they cannot be dispossessed)
• Waterpolo
• Touch Football

What do you think? Why not leave a comment regarding this drill or your PE teaching experiences!

Enjoy!

Heads Up! A Great Dribbling Drill.

In discussions with our Teachers In Sport Soccer Trainers, we hear about how fundamental skills of sports have often been overlooked during a child’s formative playing years. This can invariably lead to technical flaws in otherwise very accomplished junior players. There is no better example of this when looking at the head position in dribbling and ball control.

Here is a drill that children find fun, can run on a repeated basis as a warmup and that will, when done weekly, absolutely, 100% guarantee an improvement in you little charger’s ball control in fairly quick time.

Heads Up Compass Drill

1) Form groups of 5 (more or less can be used but it won’t quite be a ‘compass’)

2) 1 player is assigned the task of ‘dribbler’.

3) The remaining 4 players are asked to stand at the North, East, South or West points, creating a diamond with each player approximately 5-10 metres apart.

4) The player with the ball must dribble with his / her head up all the time (by keeping their eyes on one of the compass points).

5) The players forming the compass must now take turns raising their hands in the air. When the ‘dribbler’ sees a hand in the air he / she must dribble towards them until their hand goes down.

6) The dribbler must then turn whilst dribbling and find the next person they need to dribble towards.

7) If two players put their hand up at the same time, the one who is being run towards keeps their hand in the air, the other puts their hand down. Alternatively a teachers could be calling out ‘North!’, ‘East!’ randomly with the child at that compass point putting their hand up in response.

Great for all standards, all ages and good to use with points scoring, timing or in a totally non-competitive context.

Enjoy!

Look at the Scoreboard!

The ‘Diversity of Learners’ – a catchphrase used widely in modern teaching, often ad nauseam but a teaching approach often neglected when it comes to PE and sports coaching.

No one likes to lose. When it comes to children and junior sports, so fragile can their self-esteem be regarding their progress in any given sport that a big, nasty loss can turn them off quickly, sometimes for ever.

When you, as a teacher or coach are faced with more than 20 little cherubs, all at different stages of development in any of the sports that you may be teaching them, how do we find equality in competition despite a differential in  ability? Look at the scoreboard!

 

 

(Here’s a scoreboard for you to look at)

 

 

 

There are any number of ways in which handicapping or weighting games and drills to favour or  inhibit the scoring of your students can work really well. I will loosely categorise some examples.

Goalscoring / shooting

• More accomplished players can shoot from further back (use cones to limit how close to the goal / target they can get).
• Make the better players shoot at a smaller target. If you form 3 groups out of your class / team they can be put into a team shooting at a small, medium or large goal. This gives encouragement to be ‘promoted’ to the better group.
• In open play, nominate certain players who can only shoot with their ‘bad’ foot.
• A goal or hit target for one player could be worth more / fewer points than for their opponent.

Rallying

• The better player must wait until a certain number of balls have gone over the net before they are able to win the point. The less able player can win the point at any time.
• Give the less able player more chances when serving.
• Have the better player start the point in an off-court position so as to make their return more difficult.
• A point could be worth more or less (see above), or a point could only be won with a certain shot (eg backhand or volley).

As a general rule – and as you can probably already work out – the majority of weighting / handicapping comes down to altering the repetition, distance, size of target or points awarded. Use your imagination and you’ll have even, fun and competitive play happening infront of your very eyes!

Bees Around The Honeypot

In my opinion, Netball is the ultimate junior sport. Why? The restrictiveness of the game’s rules. It’s more about what you can’t do rather than what you can.

Take for example the ‘thirds’ rule in netball – this beautifully and evenly distributes players across the court. For children this is something we as coaches constantly desire. ‘Spread out!!’ the common cry comes from the sideline.

However in the adult game surely common sense and tactical nous would ensure that the team would spread instinctively and evenly. Those that didn’t would be punished on the scoreboard rather than be penalised. Alas, we are not here to talk about adult netball, nor adult sports coaching.

In junior terms, netball thrives where many sports fail and much of this in my opinion is due to its compulsory spreading out of the team. Ever seen an under 6’s soccer match? Welcome to the ‘Bees Around The Honey Pot’ syndrome. Where’s the ball? Oh yes, it’s in that moving scrum of Year 1 students all kicking towards the centre. We can learn a lot when it comes to coaching team sports other than netball from netball itself.

Applying restrictions as to where a player can move in training or training games can and does work wonders. It helps more players get a proper touch of the ball and more time to build and execute skills such as dribbling, passing and shooting.

A fantastic way to ensure that your players are spread out is to keep them on the sideline – not sitting as reserves but staying in the game as active players. They can receive passes, they can even shoot, but they cannot move off the sideline. It’s up to you whether or not they are allowed to run up and down the sideline or must remain stationary (at a cone or marker).

Try it in your soccer, hockey / minkey or AFL game. You’ll be amazed how it spreads the players out while keeping them engaged, active, improving in leaps and bounds and of course, having fun!