Term two week 10 2022

Academy Meeting

Monday 9am

Wednesday, 6 July · 9:00 – 10:00am

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/apr-grdq-puo

Documents to read below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15i-IpPc33MCogb54NF5U_9CrEgp1QzHn/view?usp=sharing

Above is a great website to help you understand the GROW model for better coaching.

To get marked as present you need to be seen by the teacher and fill in this form every day

Senior Academy Coaching

The value of sport for our communities

Alex Chiet

Alex Chiet is the Sport Development National Consultant at Sport NZ. Alex has extensive experience in sport leadership having previously worked in NZ and overseas in both sport development and high performance sport

The benefits of being involved in sport are far-reaching. For participants, research shows that sport is a great tonic for making us happier, healthier people. At a community level, we know sport is a great connector.

Sport helps us to feel included and supported, with a sense of belonging. It also helps us to feel proud of our communities.

For our army of volunteer administrators, managers, coaches and helpers behind the scenes, these factors are super important.

And in these uncertain times, it is worth pausing to recognise and celebrate this.

Tony Philp, who has had over 20 years involved in sport and is currently New Zealand Rugby’s High Performance Sevens Manager puts it well,

“Sport helps our communities to come together to connect, communicate and care”.

Adults often volunteer for personal fulfillment and the enrichment they gain from being part of a community outside of their homes and workplaces.

In difficult times it becomes a source of wellbeing, especially if they have lost jobs, are dealing with loss, or struggling in a changing environment.

While young people benefit greatly from youth sport, it’s also huge for our volunteer network.

“As human beings connecting to our community is critical to the health and mental wellbeing of our society, especially in times of uncertainty”, says Tony.

“Connecting through sport provides all people – players, coaches, administrators and volunteers – with a sense of identity, pride, belonging, gratitude and joy”.

“People need a sense of self fulfilment, identity, pride, belonging, and connection…”

Tony’s comments align with the Value of Sport study, the results of which state being physically active creates happier, healthier people, better connected communities and a stronger New Zealand.

In fact, 88 percent of respondents believe that sport and other physical activities provide them with opportunities to achieve and help build confidence.

Eighty four percent believe sport and physical activity bring people together and create a sense of belonging, and 74 percent say sport and physical activity help build vibrant and stimulating communities.

As Tony says, the word that keeps summarising all of this up is the importance of connection.

“Connection also provides opportunities for people to help each other out, whether it be on a personal level, such as “how are you?”, or a professional level, like contact for jobs.

“It opens up connections to areas that may help with personal circumstances, such as job opportunities, and gives people the ability to have conversations with others about their challenges which will help, no doubt, in the long run,” says Tony.

The flow-on from connection is massive for our communities to care for each other again, he says.

“If anything, COVID 19 has reinforced the importance of volunteering their time to help with their mental wellbeing.

“Contributing to something like sport will help them know they still have value and worth by doing this.”

Sport is renowned as a source of wellbeing – there is the endorphin buzz of exercise, as well as that sense of pride for something.

It helps people to feel that sense of belonging and, in some cases, provides them with a ‘safe’ environment for them to be themselves.

It helps grow resilience too when times are tough and might not go so well, for example, losing a game, not getting picked for something, being injured, or working out how to get through a certain situation.

There is no doubt that community sport creates a culture that helps grow people’s identity and sense of belonging.

“It really does help people to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than them and allows them to have a sense of pride and gratitude for making a difference to others and the community,” says Tony

Take that away and Netball Wellington’s Sue Geale says some volunteers would find it difficult and feel isolated.

“They would be worried about their physical wellbeing, and mentally, not having that interaction with the group they normally have each week could have a real negative impact.”

From a volunteer’s perspective, she says being involved in sport keeps them not only physically and mentally active, but that feeling of supporting others can give them a real lift.

“It gives them a sense of purpose and a feeling of being valued.

“Being around youth can also keep the adult feeling younger and more energetic, and they can find it rewarding seeing others grow and develop.

“By keeping youth involved in sport our volunteers can also feel as though they’re helping to keep them off the street and busy, and out of trouble, it’s a win-win.”

The top six benefits we think are worth celebrating for volunteers involved in youth sport are:

• Connection and networks with others

• Personal pride and satisfaction/making a difference

• A sense of safety and belonging

• Gratitude

• Helps to grow resilience

• Energising, fun, rewarding and challenging!

Todd Beane

Todd Beane is Founder of TOVO Academy dedicated to educating coaches online, on site and in Barcelona, Spain. TOVO Training is an innovative methodology proven to develop footballers of great cognition, competence, and character

Talent: Nature vs. nurture, is it relevant? Top PDP contributor and coaching innovator, Todd Beane discusses the preconceptions around talent and the role of the coach observing and assessing performance before adding value through a considered program of training.

Was Leo Messi born a star? Is talent innate or acquired?

While we may find the nature vs. nurture debate interesting it is completely irrelevant to us as coaches. A player will show up for training on day one and that is where we begin.

Our day one with her may be her day 451 in soccer. However, the fact is that day one is day one with us. We cannot change her past skill acquisition anymore than we can change her genetic code. Both nature and nurture has led her to us this day.

Begin at the Baseline

Upon arrival, each player in our charge has a baseline capacity to play the game. Our role is to assess that capacity quickly and effectively.

We must look at a players’ cognitive ability. How well does she perceive her environment and respond intelligently to the challenges at hand? What solutions does she propose? What decisions does she make?

We must analyze her competence. Can she receive, pass, and dribble? We can test individual skills within the context of a dynamic session as long as we observe and observe well.

We must assess her character. Is she ambitious? How well does she respond to mistakes? Is she energetic and engaged?

Of course, we must be patient and not draw grand conclusions too quickly but the data we need to collect is there for us to amass with keen sensibility. The trick is not to let failure obscure the success of a player. A great decision may fall short when accompanied by poor technique. However, that does not mean that the cognitive process was poor, just that the left foot may be weak. Conversely we must not be deceived when poor decisions are salvaged by speed or a skillful move.

Let us celebrate the best qualities of our players and build from there. A small player need not be compared to a taller one. She does not control her maturation in that regard. But she does control her attitude and her commitment to play with joy. That we can expect of her and every child.

And, as coaches, what can we give her?

We can commit to an open mind about who she is, why she plays and where we can guide her. We can promise to be observant, caring and professional. We can dedicate ourselves to improve her baseline one training session at a time.

And we can throw the nature vs. nurture debate aside and nurture, nurture, nurture the potential within her and every player.

Coach’s Survey

• Do you treat each player as an individual within the team context?

• Do you celebrate effort?

• Do you accept that smaller players are just smaller and younger players are just younger but that neither fact should prejudice our commitment to talent development?

• Can you make a meaningful and precise distinction between cognition, competence and character?

Conclusion

In the end, we are brilliant coaches if each and every player leaves our supervision better in as many aspects of the game as possible. And the remarkable thing is that this victory can take place for every player of every team at every level in the league standings.

Let’s coach the player we have in front of us.

Praise vs. Affirmation

Professor Stephen Rollnick

Stephen Rollnick is Honorary Distinguished Professor in the School of Medicine, Cardiff University. He was a practicing psychologist in the UK National Health Service for 16 years, and then became a teacher and researcher on the subject of motivation and behavior change. He is a co-founder of motivational interviewing and has written many books on this subject, including the most recent one for school teachers, along with over 100 peer reviewed academic papers. He has trained people in many countries and continents, has worked extensively on behalf of children with HIV in Africa, and is currently pursuing an interest in sports coaching. He grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, now lives in Cardiff, Wales, and restricts his sporting life to tennis and being heckled by four children

This article is shared by Player Development Project

Prof. Stephen Rollnick is a pioneer in motivational interviewing and in recent years has been applying his knowledge to sport. In this article, Stephen offers a psychology perspective on the key differences between praise and affirmation with young athletes.

“When you’re that young, it doesn’t take a lot to be encouraged, or discouraged . . . they raised my game . . . they saw something in me I didn’t see in myself.” (Sir Ken Robinson, educationalist)

In my work as a psychologist and trainer in and around the medical and counselling fields, I notice quite a difference between praise and affirmation. Then more recently, when I started working in sport, I noticed the widespread use of praise, not just to acknowledge success, which seems natural enough, but as a motivational strategy or “sweetener” that presumably improves outcomes. Does it? I wasn’t so sure. Then I read James’ Vaughan’s article on how praise, and its withdrawal, affected his self-esteem and well-being as a young person, and undermined his creativity on the field. So I wondered about whether the use of affirmation in sport might have value. See what you think. Here’s an imaginary example:

A young player aged 15 in a tense match situation produces a long, low pass that dissects a defense and leads to the simplest of goals, an act of daring and creativity seemingly beyond his age. Imagine meeting him after the game, with a desire to focus on that wonderful pass and to encourage him to develop further. What might you say, and why? One of the most common coaching responses is to use praise:

Coach: “Well done, that was a cracking good pass that was” (Praise)

Player: “Thanks coach” (smiles)

Coach: “That’s one of the best I’ve seen you do. It will be good to see more of those…”

Player: “Sure, thanks”

Coach: “Have a good rest now and let’s see more of those passes next week, OK?”

Another choice you have is to use affirmation, and it might sound like this:

Coach: “That long pass, it seemed like you paused, and somehow saw this gap in their defence” (Affirmation)

Player: “Yeah, it felt like time stood still” (smiles)

Coach: “And in that moment you had the confidence just to go for the long pass” (affirmation)

Player: “Yeah, I just acted on it”

Coach: “It was your vision, and you trusted it” (affirmation)

Player: “Yeah I want to trust it more next time…”

Affirming is when you acknowledge something inside the player that’s already there, which cannot be taken away, like shining a light on something positive that you’ve noticed. It’s something for them to notice too, take ownership of and be inspired by. If praise is a judgment you pass down, affirmation is something you notice, an observation you share, about positive things in their performance, ability, attitude or behaviour that they can take ownership of and can feel proud about. You show appreciation and understanding and look out for evidence of qualities that might inspire them; in football I imagine this might be things like flair, determination, seeing spaces and openings on the field – a long list of positive qualities that could help them to develop as both people and players.

Here are some more examples of affirmation from my imaginary football world; notice how some of them are used in the face of failure, not just success:

Comparison

“Well done, I’m impressed with your work today” (praise).

Or…

“There’s that determination again” (affirmation).

Dialogue 1

Player: “I’ve messed up here, right there”

Coach: “You tried hard, and you are good at noticing where things go wrong ”

Player: “Yes I did try, and I want to get this right”

Dialogue 2

Player: “I let the team down”

Coach: “You don’t like that because you are a loyal team player” (affirmation)

Single Offerings

• You keep your head when under pressure

• That would have taken some courage

• You like to keep going and help others, particularly when you are losing

• You enjoy leading

• Even when things are not going well, you make solid decisions

Is the word “affirmation” really just a fancy word for a “compliment”? My experience is that they are different. A compliment is something I offer someone else, a judgment I make and it usually involves using the word, “I”. Notice how the coach’s ego is left out of the examples above, and they mostly start with the word, “You”.

Last week I was walking on Clifton Downs in Bristol with a friend and his 20 year-old son, and he took us to the very spot where he took a successful penalty in his club game the weekend before. “My mind was super calm Dad” he said, “and I took hold of this idea you pointed out to me when I was ten remember, playing cricket? You said I was always super calm under pressure, so I just stood there, remembered that, and stared at the grass before I took the kick, and then whacked it with no stress at all”. Was that comment from his father an affirmation? A learning exercise often used in training counselors is to ask them who their favourite teacher was and why? “They believed in me” is the most common answer I’ve come across. Affirmation is a direct way of showing someone that you believe in them.

Mark Upton wrote a gem of an article on the difference between teaching and learning just recently on this website. I wonder whether praise is more associated with teaching, and affirming with learning? If that’s correct it points to the likelihood that praise and affirming are not just communication techniques, but reflections of different views of how coaching helps players to improve?

I’ve often seen praise in sport being used as a motivational pick-me-up by a coach who has the answers and is trying to get the player to absorb them, for example, “Well done, that was exactly right, now see if you can……”. Or if things go wrong, “Well done, good effort anyway, don’t worry, now see if you can…..”. This sounds a lot like what I termed the use of the righting reflex in our healthcare work, the almost instinctive and often unconscious tendency to see a problem and immediately try to fix it for the person. Is that what concerns Upton about teaching?

In contrast, the use of affirming is an expression of a different approach to improvement, focused on developing strengths not just rectifying weakness, probably voiced thus: “You have most of what it takes to change; my job is to come alongside you and help you to see new approaches to old problems. How might I help you get unstuck and move forward?” Is this what Upton was getting at when he talked about supporting learning? It so happens to be the foundation for a conversation style called motivational interviewing but that’s the subject of another article sometime.

This article might be a call to tame the righting reflex. There surely is a place for the thoughtful and wise use of praise, and yet when used like its a habit, coupled with a view that coaches know it all, it might undermine progress.

Finally, what might the more regular use of affirming do to your coaching practice? If your mindset is based on a view of young players as people with strengths not just with deficiencies to be corrected, you should find yourself affirming quite spontaneously. Then you can practice some more. What effect might this have? The look on the players’ faces will give you immediate feedback, and in this sense they are your best teachers. Is that what Ken Robinson was getting at in the quotation at the start of this article? Were his teachers affirming him?

Image Credit: Sport NZ

Referee sheet :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BsSxl1tdZnvOGCYlBLunBnIP2DtkSTg4EYwLsDPExqQ/edit?usp=sharing

Lesson Plan :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CH6L6erLtH3C17EkmPkdbPnj57JgxYZsFBte8ZX23SI/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15i-IpPc33MCogb54NF5U_9CrEgp1QzHn/view?usp=sharing This is the doc