The Teesra

Category: pedagogy

_how_ we coach: theory, practice & philosophy

  • Whole-Part-Whole — time for another look?

    Back in 2014 I posted a simple page describing the “Whole-Part-Whole” session plan — play a game (“Whole”), coach a specific skill component relevant to that game (“Part”), then play the game, or a conditioned version of the game, again (“Whole”, again).

    Just a description, filed under “coaching resources” alongside some more traditional session plans (level 2, back then, was billed as “learning to write plans”), with no attempt to explain why it might be useful.

    Recently, the page has started to generate some more views — nothing spectacular, but as many visits in the last 12 months as in the previous 7 years.

    So I thought it might be interesting to take another look at Whole-Part-Whole (WPW), and why I still think it is a useful framework for session planning.

    (more…)

  • 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.

    (more…)
  • Coach as “learning consultant” — can we help players to learn how to learn?

    Coach as “learning consultant” — can we help players to learn how to learn?

    Barney Ronay posted this, typically insightful, article on the recriminations after England’s latest Ashes drubbing — Not all failings of England’s Test team can be blamed on County cricket.

    One line stands out, for me.

    “Root’s complaints about not replicating exactly the conditions of Test cricket in advance are the words of a sports person who has been cosseted through a system from boyhood, who feels it is an oversight not to be spoon-fed the perfect prep…”

    Not, perhaps, that players expect to be spoon-fed, but that they perhaps don’t know how to learn if they are not spoon-fed?

    This might be key, beyond discussion of central contracts and what the England coaches actually do, beyond CAG & Academy pathways and inclusion, right back to how young players are first introduced to the game.

    So the question might be — do coaches know how to teach young players to learn?

    (more…)