Changes to training sessions after my FA Coaching course

Regular readers will know that I have recently been on a football coaching course delivered by the Durham FA. I encourage anyone that is interested in football to get along to one of these courses as it gives a great structure to the way you watch and understand football as well as giving you a valuable skill that you can apply.

I have used some of the key points in the course to change the way that I coach my players when it comes around to training sessions on a Wednesday evening. Here are the changes that I have made as part o the learning of my FA Level 1 Coaching course-

Arrival activity
This was  major pain when I started coaching. I was waiting for a all the players to arrive and be ready for training. Some would arrive 15 minutes early while others would be up to 10 minutes late for various reasons. So there could be a 25 minute gap between first to arrive and last to arrive. I used to start the training session on time and then those that were late would just filter in as they arrived. This was disjointed and caused a little chaos. Arrival activities are playing with the ball in games that can be scaled up as more players arrive. Passing with 2 people can become passing with 6; a match with 1 v 1 can quickly upscale to 5 v 5 if needed. These arrival activities means that everyone is involved as soon as they arrive and we don't see the disruption that might happen otherwise.

Progressions
This was a major part of the course and it concerns taking your players along a journey with a particular drill or set of drills to get them better in one or more areas of the game. Take passing, for example, you may have a dill set up to get your players passing. After a few minutes, a few weeks or longer hey become very good at this particular drill. So you need to change it up to make it more difficult for them to achieve success. As this gets more and more difficult and your players get better and better, the progressions that you put in have helped to challenge them and up their skill level. The progression need to be planned out in advance so you can see where you are going with it and how you will give your players the next challenge. This talk of planning leads on to...

Plan, do, review
This is the way that the FA want their coaches to deliver the training they give to their teams. It is part of the England DNA that I have written about before. You are expected to spend as much time planning your training sessions as you do delivering them, and again the same amount of time on reviewing how they went. This means that you are in total control of the way that you want your players to develop and progress. You plan out what each training session looks like and how this fits into the long-term plan for your set of players.

Part of the England DNA of football coaching

With the England match away to Slovakia tonight in mind - first one for Big Sam - it has been interesting doing my Level 1 football coaching course this week. The way that the FA is now structured is that every level feeds into the national team and the way of playing the game. In future you will see the players that have gone through the grassroots of football and through the system to reach the top level of the game. We are now generating players that have played in all positions, have developed the skills that have been identified as essential and will play the game in the right way.

The FA Level 1 Football Coaching course has been really interesting for me to work with other budding coaches and get an insight into the way the FA wants us all to bring our players through and develop them. I am really excited about getting to put all of this into practice with my team. I am ready to get back to my club and put all of this into practice.

Being able to watch and learn from the tutors as well as see practices delivered by others on the course was a great way to get together some ideas about different training sessions, how they fit together and how to adapt them to players of different ages. I am confident that I can start to think about the development needs of my players and how I can put training sessions into place to help them be better players over time.

The way that all of this fits together from grassroots up to the top level of the game is really interesting and will stand the game in this country in good stared in the future. The different phases of the game are looked at in detail to establish the necessary skills-

• In possession
• Out of possession
• Transition

You will see the way that young footballers play the game will change over time. The emphasis on everyone enjoying their game, players swapping roles and being comfortable on the ball are all major factors in this. One other parts that I found will make a massive difference is encouraging your players to take risks and not being afraid of the consequences. The focus has been taken away from winning games at all costs to achieving specific objectives both from a personal and a team point of view.

FA Football coaching course will fill my week

I am spending this week going through an FA Level 1 coaching course to home up my coaching skills. I have agreed to help my sons' football team and as part of being able to coach I am on this course.

It started with two evenings last week and is followed up by four full (ish) days this week. Apart from tomorrow, which is safeguarding and First Aid, the whole week will be set aside to working out a set of practices that will benefit the players in the team. Everything is done under the supervision of FA coaches and is all linked to the FA DNA of coaching.

I need to make sure that the training sessions are safe, fun and inclusive. It is a really interesting take on football coaching and is very different to the training sessions that I experienced when I was young. The team I train are Under 10's so there is a lot of room for development and I am looking forward to working in training again when the course is complete.

The last session we did was to deliver a training practice and look at how this might develop our team. I went for a passing game with the emphasis on getting the whole team involved in touching the ball. It is important to give as many players as possible in touch with the ball rather than standing in a queue waiting for their turn.

A revelation for me was the introduction of arrival activities. This is where the players are involved with the football as soon as they get there. With a training session starting at 6.15pm we have players arriving at different times. To get them involved with the ball and moving around is much more productive than taking shots at each other or messing around. This will be introduced at training this week and I hope it has s big impact.