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Session on Passing and Shooting in Football

In a Passing and Shooting session we came across a few pedagogical problems which we had to reflect in action and touch on a single and double loop.

It was mainly in Activity 2 where the actions arrived at the ‘clash’, in this activity we didn’t take into consideration equipment and soon realised when we had queue’s of pupils standing around.

Noticing this as one person from the group was doing the activity I would refer back to last weeks warm up to still keep them active due to it being cold outside. As this progresses I then asked for different dynamic stretches from people which we’d do as a group. In this I noticed a problem and prevented it from happening, however looking at the governing values and ideas from the email I received this activity wasn’t as beneficial as we initially thought.

This is because 1: part of the activity was moving in and out of cones before arriving to a ball, which doesn’t contribute to our LO. 2: looking back at it someone could’ve been at the other end of the gates at the far end ready to receive the ball instead of making the sender then go and retrieve it and dribble back to the spot the got it from, which further dribbling doesn’t contribute to LO.

Passing and Moving in Netball

This netball session was the second one we were doing and thought we’d base it around passing and moving, we thought of doing this as an area as it is sports specific for netball and invasion sports in general. Another reason we chose to do this is because at this age and stage the participants should be combining skills (Lloyd & Oliver 2015) and at an application stage (Gallahue, Ozmun, & Goodway, 2012) where these passing and moving skills can be put into a game.

At the end of the session we set these LO: -To Perform a successful partner in space -To perform a successful pass and move manoeuvre. With each LO having different ways of achieving this through strivers and strugglers.

Firstly, looking at these learning objectives I realised that they aren’t as clear as planned out, and defining space was subjective, if that be an arms width away of a few steps away. Another thing missing was to state the types of passes in netball to do in the LO. Having such vague LO’s weren’t really SMART objective as they weren’t measurable and should’ve used some form of a percentage and state what space is straight away.

With these LO’s we planned activities suitable to achieve these and weren’t just activities that didn’t align. As for the first activity, we originally planned for the kids to run with the ball which does go off the netball rules but the activity promoted more movement as they were instructed to cross over with their partner passing the ball in front of them and running behind them to cross over to the diagonal cone. In our session plan we did plan for both adaptations to make it easier and harder, but we settled to start easier with the adaptation being that you pass then move not combining as it may be too much information to get a hold of. Thinking back to this activity the whole aspect of running with the ball shouldn’t have really been considered as the participants would’ve though that it would be allowed as we have let them do it.

As the kids were doing the activity we discussed moving onto the moving with the ball section but agreed that they were only just about getting comfortable and understanding of what they were doing at the moment, so settled to stay with this as we feel it is more important to do the simple things at a great standard instead of settling for good and moving onto the next activity without being fully pleased with last activity.

With such a high quantity of students usually, we always plan for 30 participants and base the numbering and sections to be organised, in some cases this session was organised as the three sections didn’t need hassle moving around. However, the original plan was lower by only a few but using other adaptations we knew but hadn’t included on our session plan worked for us. In this case one of the games would’ve been a 5 vs 5 but ended up being a 4 vs 3 game, within this game we added constraints to the team of 4 originally that we had initially on our session plan, but we concluded that the constraints weren’t having as much an impact. The last action we took that ended up working best was to have a floater that can side for both teams with a 3 vs 3 making the teams fair and both have the opportunity to use the floater to help them.

Creating a Dance Routine

From switching from football to dance, it was quite the change and with no governing goals given we were left with a blank template on what to teach and how we were going to do it. With us coaches dance isn’t something we would typically teach but we understand as a coach we should be able to coach and adapt to create some form of a session for participants to take part in and learn at the end.

Looking at dance forms and our students, we though a suitable dance style was the Hakka as it is gets the boys involved more and the girls we have in our year are usually open to do anything and give it their all.

When creating the session plan, we wanted the participants to create a sequence that is controlled and the moves link together with one another. We also planned for what we wanted at the end of this form which was in 3 weeks, being that the participants would integrate each new aspect we introduce weekly to create a final piece to present for other groups. As for this first week it was mainly based around the fundamental movements/ stances of a stereotypical Hakka. To do this we provided demos and had a sheet of stances/ moves that they could imitate first without being a routine. For a warm up we thought it would be ideal to do stretches on areas we knew that they were going to use to prevent injury happening.

We based the session into small groups and coming up with a sequence using the prescribed moves first with some inclusion of their own moves that don’t stray away from a typical Hakka. By doing so, this increases their autonomy as they are having to come up with the sequence as a group. Additionally, they will improve their teamwork and communication by coming up with ideas. We thought that when splitting into their OWN groups they would have more confidence with sharing their ideas with the group. We know that it is a useful tool making smaller groups as they have more autonomy behind what they do and increases motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This is why we let them choose who they wanted to be with. In the session, it was great to see that all of the students were involved with the task that they were set. this shows us as coaches that the practise structure worked in our favour and had the pupils on task.

One limitation was the fact that there were too many groups in the end and between us as coaches there may be the odd group that wasn’t being supervised and may get off task just by messing between themselves. To prevent this from happening each time we moved groups we would ask the group to watch another group we were watching and provide feedback on what they liked and what they would add if it was their routine, this helped us a s coaches as it made it easier to handle all the groups and in a way the groups are learning off each other and helping them out.

Footwork and Passing/ Moving in Netball

For our third week we thought we would go over the previous two week skills to make sure they understood and remember key features of it and if not it can be a session to fill in the gaps. Our LO’s were a combination of both footwork in week 1 and passing and moving in week 2, and a way in which both of these could be put into a game scenario.

We repeated an activity from last week to see if they remembered, which they did and got the session moving straight away, one adaptation we put on our plan is to have ‘less time on the ball to introduce quick thinking’ which focuses on the aspect of having an active session but the quick thinking aspect is only the reaction time for the catcher as there is only prescribed decisions given to the pupils. This adaptation does contribute to the LO in a way but with this along can decrease in performance in technique, so having this adaptation didn’t work so well as we found balls being misplaced causing distractions. Due to this we had to backtrack to the base activity to return back to steady performance, however this only lead to the pupils getting bored of doing the session and concentration and time on task decrease.

This became difficult for us as coaches as it was whether to settle for what we previously had and move on or keep doing this a bit longer and think of a way to order the session. We chose to stay on this but it only caused frustration and lack of interest for the pupils. When the activity changed to one focusing on the footwork and pivoting aspect, they were all participating as it was a new one we hadn’t done, which to us informed us that this class prefer learning through new activities instead of repeating old activities.

So in terms of the first activity, if we were to change it, we would do an activity that looks and acts out different, but still covers that pass and move feature as they prefer doing that as it may seem like blocked practice which isn’t suitable for that age and stage (Muir 2012). Due to the elongated activities a game opportunity to integrate the skills wasn’t possible and is something we touch upon next week.

Using Speech in a Dance Routine

To follow on from the standard movements we wanted to include the feature of speech/chanting which is commonly found in Hakka’s. Similar to the first week they had there small groups and the inclusion of a sheet with sayings were given and had to include some in their routine.

They were given the time to come up with a chant as a group and as last week have everyone watch other groups in a face-off style. We found that within a group there would be an individual that would up lift the team and bring out a side to the quieter ones that the teacher didn’t expect, this shows that giving them the choice of group members brings out there true creative side due to them feeling comfortable. However, if put into a mixed up group people may take charge and instruct others without the inclusion aspect with each other. This was one thing we found was the best thing about it, focusing upon the psycho-social side taking into consideration the 5 C’s specifically.

Having the 5 C’s something to work on in their group especially: Communication, Concentration and Confidence. These 3 specifically are ones we found most in our small groups as they all link to work together within their groups, further backing up the decision to spilt the groups up with them having Control over it.

One variable that was out of our control was the fact that some of the students had to be taken out of lesson reducing people in their groups, this made people lose confidence and not want to perform for the class, which we understood and let them have their own decisions.

Summary and Action Plan

One common occurrence throughout these sessions was surrounding the Learning Outcomes, in most of the LO’s they weren’t that measurable and when it came to reviewing the session afterwards our understanding of whether or not the participants reached the learning outcomes. When creating a session plan from now on, i will make sure i have LO’s that i know i can easily track and follow for participants to reach so as a coach it helps me acknowledge if they have learned and can progress.

When looking at the progression of our coaching from the first placement session to now, it is clear and apparent that as coaches we have developed as i found learning through experience outmatches the learning through theory. In our formative feedback observation, we were told that when we arrive for our session and get the pupils to listen to us, they do it straight away as they feel comfortable around us and will comply. As they feel more comfortable around us they start to show more signs of taking advantage as we aren’t their proper teacher and are younger so some individuals think that they can get away with certain things, but as we began to understand what to do in this situation through it happening we knew what actions to take that would control the situation.