Callum Bruce – Coaching Context Placement Blog – Coaching context placement blog

Blog Post 1

Within our placement, the schools PE curriculum is set up and for a class to follow throughout the year. As we begin our placement journey, the first category of activities is based around building and improving FMS (fundamental movement skills).

The first session that we ran was based around the three different components of sol; these are stability, object control and locomotion. (Morley, 2010) In our session plan, we decided it would be a good idea to split off into 3 different groups and to focus primarily on a single component each; I focused on the object control for the session. My aim for object control was to ensure that there was as much repetition as possible as I believed this was the best was for learning at this age. When i came away, I looked into this theory and it proved that repetition increases levels of muscle memory, making the skill easier to perform. (Kirk, 2012)

The focus was to try improve object control with different techniques including throwing, catching, rolling, bouncing, and other ball handling techniques. The reason for this was that these skills are transferable skills that can be used in any sport that involves handling balls (Jones and Lavallee, 2009). As the ability level of the group was slightly unknown to us, we decided that it was best that we made the drills relatively simple so we could see the skill levels of the group, but also added lots of progressions and regressions so that strugglers or stivers would be catered for (Guadagnoli and Lindquist, 2007).

With each group we had fifteen minutes each and with the first group, I could see that the skills I had devised within the session plan were too easy for most of the group, meaning that I had to progress them on quickly as I could see the engagement levels were dropping as they find them too easy (Raw et al., 2015). However, a couple of the group members were struggling with some of the skills, meaning I had to find a way to progress the strivers without disheartening the strugglers. To do this, I decided to let them set their own challenge point (Guadagnoli and Lindquist, 2007).The skill was to throw the ball into the air and catch it again. To set their own challenge point, I explained they needed to clap as many times as they could before catching it again. This allowed the strivers to throw the ball higher to clap more times, and the strugglers were contempt when throwing the ball up and clapping maybe once or twice.

Within the next two groups, I was able to understand more about when to change the skills up based around the group ability levels as I had the experience with the group prior; this will come forward with me with the coaching I will do in the future.

References

Guadagnoli, M. and Lindquist, K. (2007) ‘Challenge Point Framework and Efficient Learning of Golf’, International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2(0), pp. 185–197.

Jones, M. I. and Lavallee, D. (2009) ‘Exploring the life skills needs of British adolescent athletes’, Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 10(1), pp. 159–167. doi: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2008.06.005.

Kirk, L. (2012) ‘Learning through Repetition’, Swimming World, 53(4), pp. 31–32.

Morley, D. (2010) ‘Multi-skills: Contexts and Constraints’, Physical Education Matters, 5(2), pp. vi–viii.

Raw, R. K. et al. (2015) ‘The “Goldilocks Zone”: Getting the Measure of Manual Asymmetries’, PLoS ONE, 10(5), pp. 1–20. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128322.