NEWS - MAY: CREATING A LEARNING CULTURE

If people wish to achieve their potential in any discipline it is important that their focus is on learning to help them achieve their goal. Clive Woodward commented on the 2003 Rugby World Cup Team, that he has never met a player intent on being the best that did not want to learn how to achieve their best. In developing young aspiring professional footballers this message cannot be hammered home enough, and learning has to be central to all coaching, matches and contact time with our players.The belief of the FDS staff is that the learning starts when the children arrive and that the message on leaving should be, go and practice what you have learnt and develop yourself making your next performance better than the previous
one.

The main way to achieve this is through following the exercises in the homework books in order to improve their individual technique and skills. As the boys mature, the homework will change to the indivual needs of the player. Some may have to concentrate on their speed, while others may concentrate on their skill. Within the culture there needs to be an understanding from both the teacher and the pupil that they ARE learning and taking in inforamtion.

A much used phrase by coaches is 'you can lead the horse to water, but you cannot make the horse drink' This phrase holds to key to all teaching and it is no surprise that the more successful players in the FDS programme are those which take the infomation and act upon it.

At FDS we don't just take for granted that players should be able to take responsibility but actively help them to learn this by challenging them and taking them out of their comfort zone to test them and help them become more confident. Seeing a confident young person is the joy of both parentingand coaching.

As players come through the system they will be asked to learn about and work on new areas of the game to help them further improve. However this will only happen if players have learnt and taken responsibility for the first building blocks of their game e.g. practicing at home, taking in information from the coaches and taking responsibility for their kit, contacting the coaches and asking theirown questions on how to improve. Some of these areas include rest and recovery, diet and training (strength, flexibility, core stability, speed and power). Helping players learn about lifestyle habits is essential, so areas like diet and rest are essential for players to continue to perform to the highest standard, and this area needs to be continuously reinforced as the player develops.

Learning occurs one step at a time and within the FDS system each stage is carefully mapped out from one stage to the next, but without the player learning to take responsibility for their game in the first place it is difficult to move to the next stage.