The Teesra

Category: better cricket

  • Coaching neurodivergent players…and how it just might be a better way to coach, full stop.

    A learning week!

    Neurodiversity training from Headstuff ADHD Therapy, through one of my “zero hours contract” workplaces.

    An online webinar in the always interesting Myths of Sport Coaching webinar series (hosted on YouTube by Sequoia Books), on the proactive role of sports psychology.

    And more reading, away from the functional “what to coach” and towards the more productive, much more interesting “how to work with people”.

    And out of this has emerged a series of ideas on how to better support players with ADHD and autism.

    But as I re-read the list of accommodations and adjustments, it became very apparent that what I had written down could be profitably applied to most coaching activities.

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  • UNCRC & sports coaching — more than “safeguarding”

    I had heard of a “rights-based approach” to coaching children, but not understood how this extends beyond keeping them safe from harm, important as this is.

    So I was very interested to find out more about this approach, and how rights-based coaching relates to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), as part of the Open University (OU) course Sports Performance: Different Approaches to Sports Coaching.

    The United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child

    Lots to think about.

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  • Q: What is “better coaching? A: It has to be more than new drills & games, more than techniques & affordances.

    There have been some interesting conversations recently around the perceived weakness of the current player development pathway in England & Wales, whether looking at the excessive cost (to parents) of inclusion on a County pathway or the impact of the relative age effect on access to and inclusion in the pathway.

    The highly selective structure of the pathway works against players born later in the (age-group selection) year. Several suggestions to offset this unintended bias against the younger players have been proposed.

    • County Age Group & District squads could be larger, and de-selection later.
    • Parallel development squads be maintained for those born later in the year.
    • Delaying selection to rep squads, with greater reliance on clubs to develop younger players (coincidentally removing the additional costs associated with County or District squads).

    Any of these approaches would require more coaches, and probably coaches with different skills.

    Possibly “better” coaches.

    But what is better coaching? I have had several attempts at defining what training might support (better) coach development, without really looking at the skills that these “better” coaches would want.

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