U9 Girls’ Coaching Clinic & Games (A) Horncastle Hockey Club 2.00pm
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Report by Megan B, Year 8:
On Wednesday 27th November we delivered a coaching clinic to a group of 40 Year 3 and 4s. It was great to welcome pupils from St George’s Prep in Boston and Greenwich House in Louth. The pupils took part in three stations which each had 2-3 progressive activities. Each of us was responsible for leading a station and helping the younger players develop their hockey skills and games awareness. Isla padded up and faced some eager shooters in a 'beat the GK' activity!
- Station 1 - Jemima, Camilla and Ela
- Focus - Carrying the ball (dribbling)
For our first activity we did 'Me and My Ball Time', this consisted of all students getting their own ball and dribbling it around the D. We made sure everyone kept their heads up, their balls glued to their stick and their hands apart at the right distance. The second activity was 'Traffic Light', this game was all about keeping your head up in a game and looking out to see what the umpire is calling. We had three cones. They had to dribble in the D until we held up a card. If we held up green they had to go as fast as possible. If it was yellow they’d have to walk and if it was red they had to stop. Our final activity was called 'Rob The Nest'. The aim of this game was to practise controlling the ball. Everyone was split up into four even groups, they were all in a sectioned square and in each corner in the middle there was a pile of balls all with different numbers of points. One person was allowed out of their square at once. They had to run to the pile of balls and get one ball to dribble back to their nest. At the end of the game it was whoever had the most points in their square/nest who won.
Everyone played amazingly well for their age and there were a few players that shone out to us as coaches. We had to help a few people with their hand placements, but other than that everyone was happy and excited to play some fun hockey games.
We learnt how to lead and coach younger children during this experience. We all found it really fun and exciting to be able to have this opportunity. This task made us more independent and gave us more leadership skills.
- Station 2 - Megan, Gemma and Tabitha
- Focus - Moving the ball (passing)
In this activity the pupils had lots of different fun games to practise passing the ball. These games were passing to other people by communicating with body language. They did this by pointing their stick to where they wanted the ball. They then worked on passing to people on golden strips and moving - this helped them with passing the ball and then moving into a space to receive another pass. They then finished off by passing to a partner through cone gates. This activity helped them learn how to receive the ball in space because they had to run into the gate before they received the ball.
All the players did very well in this section and there was definitely a difference in their ability from when they started the activities to the end of the activities.
I learnt from this experience that you don't have to make things complicated to get things across and sometimes it is easy with younger children to do simpler things. We all thought it was a great experience and we had lots of fun.
- Station 3 - Kitty, Alicia, Lulu and Isla
- Focus - Goal scoring (shooting)
In this section we played 'Gladiator' and 'Beat the Goalie'. In Gladiator the aim of the game was to run to the ball when we called out their number and try to get past their opposition and score. In beating the goalie, we had Isla in goal and the aim was just to score against her.
All the players did great in these activities. There was so much progress towards the end and all the girls and boys did so well.
I learnt from this experience that you can start off easy then make it a bit harder.
We all thought that it was a great experience to be a coach and it was so much fun!