training tips & tactics

It's very important to decide what skill or technique you want your children to work on before you step onto the practice field.

You also need to decide how you're going to organise the practice and what warm ups and games and drills you're going to use.

You should also have an idea of how long each activity should last and how you're going to make the transition from one activity to the next.

Knowing what you're going to do and how you're going to do it is essential if you're going to make the best use of your practice time. It also helps you avoid discipline problems - nothing encourages children to misbehave as much as a coach who is clearly fumbling his or her way through the session!

You don't need to write hundreds of words. In fact, a few simple 'memory joggers' on a postcard or in a small notebook is ideal.

This pro-forma could come in handy:

But if you don't want to write your own practice plan from scratch or you just haven't the time, you'll find lots of ready made plans on this page.

Tip: don't persevere with a plan that obviously isn't working. Have a couple of tried and tested alternatives up your sleeve and work out what went wrong afterwards - you might need to explain what you want the children to do in a different way or the activity might be too easy or too difficult.