Cricket Ireland Research Paper
Best Practice Examples
of Schools Coaching
Brian O’Rourke
Leinster Development Officer
December, 2010
GAA
Primary Schools Programmes
The GAA recognises the important role that schools and teachers provide in the promotion of Gaelic Games. This section outlines the resources, courses and support systems the GAA have in place for primary schools.GAA Educational Resources
The GAA has produced a comprehensive suite of educational resources for primary schools. These include the following:
• GAA Fun Do Coaching Pack - for information on the Fun Do Pack, visit
the Coaching Resources page.
• Céim ar Aghaidh - This resource now provides teachers from 1st to 6th
classes with a series of teacher notes and worksheets which allow them to incorporate the theme of the GAA through all subjects in the primary school curriculum. All material is available at Céim ar Aghaidh website. A GAA themepage to support these resources is available via the Scoilnet website.
• Cúl4Kidz Magazine - for information on the Cúl4Kidz Magazine, visit the
Cúl4Kidz page.
GAA Coaching in Schools
Over 90% of schools avail of the GAA coaching-in-schools programme. This involves an agreement between schools and the County Games Development Department to provide a coaching block of between 6 to 10 weeks. All lessons are designed to meet the aims of the primary school curriculum and teachers are encouraged to work together with coaches to maximise the impact for pupils.
Club/School Links
Seventy-five percent of primary school teachers surveyed during 2009 GAA in-service summer courses reported that they found the support of their local GAA club to be good or excellent. While this is encouraging, it is important that all clubs ensure that they establish strong links with their local primary school.
Cumann na mBunscol
Cumann na mBunscol is the voluntary organisation of primary school teachers who promote our native games of camogie, hurling, football, rounders, handball and athletics.
GAA Summer In-Service Courses/Coach Education
The GAA offers a comprehensive summer in-service course for teachers in a number of counties each year. Information on all Coach Education courses, resources or the GAA Coaching in Schools Programme, can be obtained by teachers from their local County Games Development Manager.
Donal Doyle acts as a Regional Development Officer for the GAA in the South Dublin area. He oversees the work of 14 ‘Games Promotional Officers’ (GPO’s) who promote both gaelic football and hurling within primary schools and GAA clubs. These coaching positions are funded by the Dublin County Board, the GAA club itself, along with some assistance from the Irish Sports Council. Their work
programmes are overseen by a steering committee within the clubs who monitor their progress on a weekly basic.
‘The GPO’s main role is the promotion of Gaelic games in primary schools within the schools area and forming links with the clubs. Their normal week would involve coaching visits to schools from Tuesday to Friday. They will be involved also within the clubs on any two evenings during the week while most importantly they manage the coaching clinics (Academies) held each Saturday mornings within their clubs. They would also have a role with Coach Education, running Foundation courses for interested club coaches, parents and teachers. They are regularly upskilled with
ideas/coaching methods by attending in-service training and workshops held in Parnell Park, run by Dublin GAA Games Manager Ger O’Connor.
Bigger clubs in South Dublin like Ballyboden St Enda’s and Kilmacud Crokes would have the services of both a Games Promotional Officer and a Club Coach, the latter being employed soly by the clubs themselves. Areas like Tallaght, where soccer remains by far the most popular sport, has five GAA clubs and most work closely with local schools to help increase their playing numbers. More established clubs like Thomas Davis reach out to a number of primary school in the locality. St Maelruain’s, St Annes NS and Holy Rosary National School receive coaching visits on a weekly basis from the different clubs. During Easter and Summer they run weekly blitz days for different classes from the above schools. This involves bringing all the, say, 4th classes from each school together for a blitz. Teachers would help organize the teams and in some cases help referee the games. These blitzes have proved most popular in all areas of Dublin for promoting Gaelic Games.
Cricket can learn a lot from the GAA in terms of how they promote and recruit young players from local Primary Schools. Some good ‘schoolyard’ coaching session are run by cricket coaches. However, weekly blitzs could be arranged by clubs so schoolchildren, parents and teachers can become familiar with the club’s facilities and surroundings. The weekly blitzs are easy to organize and should form a big part in establishing a relationship with the local school. These can be run during the months of May and early June when club grounds are underutilized. Many schools have completed their academic work by this time of the year and are very happy to pursue outdoor activities.
New Zealand Cricket
Primary Schools Programme
The New Zealand cricket development motto revolves around “getting individuals to play and stay in the game.” New Zealand Cricket had this in mind in 1998 when it launched its NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME. Since then initiatives have been designed, implemented and delivered at all levels of the game – primary, secondary and club – to achieve this objective. These initiatives are underpinned by clearly defined and closely aligned player and coach development pathways, and an integrated delivery structure.
The MILO initiatives are delivered by the MILO SUMMER SQUAD – a team of cricket development officers employed through the six major cricket associations – who conduct MILO holiday clinics and visit primary schools to run MILO
CRICKET SKILLS AWARENESS LESSONS for years 1-6 and offer schools the opportunity to introduce the New Zealand Cricket Skills Challenge for their Year 7 and 8 students. These provide the opportunity for the MILO Summer Squad to invite aspiring cricketers to join MILO Have-A-Go Cricket or MILO Kiwi Cricket centres, and to encourage their primary schools to enter their teams in the MILO Cup or MILO Shield competitions.
MILO Have-A-Go Cricket leads into MILO KIWI CRICKET, the already popular children’s version of cricket played by 7-10 year olds. MILO Kiwi Cricket is both a modified game and a skills development programme. It incorporates high
participation with the first experience of competition, and provides an opportunity to have fun, learn and practice the essential skills of the game, and use them each week in a real game situation. Giveaways are also available for players including a MILO Kiwi Cricket cap, posters, pen, miniature autograph bat, sticker, certificate and MILO sample
Age Range:
• 5-8 years
Skill Descriptors:
• Basic skills development -
batting, bowling, stopping, throwing, catching
• Play activities and games • Encourage Fair Play • Play with modified, safe,
plastic equipment
Objectives:
• To provide a stimulating environment that allows basic cricket skills to be
taught
• To emphasise fun & participation
• To create an awareness & interest in the game of cricket
• To get parents & teachers actively involved in the game of cricket • To provide the positive first step in a child’s long-term participation and
involvement in cricket
Resources:
To support the MILO Have-A-Go Cricket and MILO Kiwi Cricket initiatives, coaching manuals and DVD’s/CD’s have been produced. The manuals are distributed free to primary schools visited by the MILO Summer Squad and to coaches trained by them. The DVD’s are also free to MILO
Have-A-Go Cricket and MILO Kiwi Cricket Centres set up in schools and clubs, along with a starter kit of MILO Kiwi Cricket equipment.
Recently, New Zealand Cricket has developed two CD-ROMS, 'Cricket in the
Classroom' and 'More Cricket in the Classroom'. Each CD-ROM comprises a series of carefully planned lessons on cricket covering all aspects of the curriculum. These are also available to primary schools visited by the MILO Summer Squad.
Clontarf CC and senior Ireland women’s international Elaine Nolan is currently employed by the NZ Northern Districts Cricket Association as a development officer. Having a good knowledge of both the Irish and New Zealand cricket development programmes (she has coached in schools in both countries) she was able to offer the following points.
‘Our model here in Northern Districts would be completely different to what we have at home in Irleand. The Auckland or Canterbury model would be more in line with the work I have been involved with at Leinster. In Northern Districts we do not have junior sections in clubs, only Senior Men’s clubs so all the schoolboy cricket is played in schools which as a result is well established. School hardball competitions are run on Saturday mornings or afternoons. We offer KIWI cricket (soft ball) on a Friday night for primary schools from Year 2 onwards (6 years old) – same principal as Kwik cricket while in Year 5&6 they start playing hardball if the school wishes’. In relation to the different programmes run by the cricket board, Nolan who also acts as a schools coach, was able to provide further details of how the MILO programme is run within her region. ‘In Hamilton we do a week at the end of Term 3 (end of Spring) of ‘Milo Awareness’ where we go into each primary school free of charge and run a 30 minute per class session, running basic skills and drills and then a quick game of modified cricket. The children are then given packs of prizes which usually contain some NZ cricket flyers, cricket-based word games, player cards, registration forms for the programme and of course a sachet of Milo!! We then charge $35 for a six-week programme’.
The sessions are run on a weekly basis after school, for 1¼ hours and are run by secondary school or University students who have both cricket and coaching
experience. Most would have a NZC Level 1 coaching certificate (if they do not they get paid less than the qualified coaches). At the end of each session the kids get a prize, like a cap, Milo plastic bat – which really seals the deal for the whole thing.
From around the 5000/6000 kids we see in schools – we manage to capture about 8% (400 kids) into the Milo Programme, from this we may only see ¼ of these carry on and play schools cricket later on. It may seem like a small number but it’s what keeps our numbers up in the older demographics (we have a big drop off between the ages of 16 and senior cricket). It has been proven both here and Australia that the areas which run Milo Programme have a better chance at maintaining their numbers later on. Each region is responsibe for their Milo Programme – and each may run theirs differently. Northern Districts insists that Milo is run in each of the regions.
Not too dissimilar to Ireland, a lack of coaches ‘on the ground’ can cause issues but there would appear to be far more coaching going on by the teachers themselves in New Zealand than Ireland. ‘Generally schools have their own teachers who coach but if the school is struggling we will help them find someone. The district association (Hamilton cricket) will offer coaching courses for the schoolteachers and parents up to Level 1. Following that, master associations (Northern Districts) will facilitate at Level 2 and 3’.
It would appear that the bulk of the school coaching visits in Northern Districts are carried out at Primary School level. ‘We do a huge amount of work at the younger levels as most of the secondary schools would be strongly established and most would not need an input by us. We run mid-week mini world cups and festival days
involving games and skills challenges. An area where I am heavily involved myself is girls cricket, which takes a huge amount of work as, unlike the boys, it can be difficult to capture and maintain the numbers’
‘Overall the Milo programme is a fantastic way to pull in kids that otherwise would never be exposed to the sport. I will say it is pretty tough work getting it up and running, but the kids love it and as mentioned above it helps maintain the numbers later on’.
ECB – ‘Howzat’ and ‘Chance to Shine’
Primary Schools Programme
ECB's ground-breaking educational resource Howzat! has been rolled out to 1,000 cricket coaches and 1,000 school teachers annually in England as part of a major new initiative to improve cricket coaching in schools.
The ECB originally launched Howzat! as a paper-based educational resource in 2000, with two thirds of state schools nationwide receiving the ground-breaking pack which was designed to help teachers deliver cricket in schools.
Howzat! has been upgraded and redesigned to tie in with the launch of the new national curriculum. Based around a pre-installed software programme which has been specially designed for teachers, it enhances the delivery of high quality PE and school sport through cricket.
More than 1,300 copies of the resource have already been circulated to qualified cricket coaches working within the Cricket Foundation’s ‘Chance to shine’
programme. Ultimately, it will offer teachers and coaches a combination of 670,000 different games and practices to choose from.
The resource is given to any teacher or coach who completes a Working in Schools or Cricket for Teachers course. The ECB continues to work with County Boards to deliver quality cricket coaching courses and training for teachers across England and Wales.
Almost nine out of ten state schools already offer cricket, more than rugby union and tennis, and it is now consistently among the top five sports most widely available - and over half of schools have strong, formal links with cricket clubs, the second highest after football, so youngsters can access good facilities and keep playing outside school.
Cricket is fully committed to working in partnership in education and works increasingly closely with the Chance to Shine initiative to train the people who are
bringing cricket back to state schools. Cricket announced a 27 per cent increase in participation in 2008 due to the success of this approach.
The Cricket Foundation launched Chance to Shine in May 2005 and set out to bring competitive cricket - and its educational benefits - back to at least a third of the country’s state schools over a ten-year period.
The campaign
Now in its fourth year, Chance to Shine recognises the power of cricket to help young people acquire important skills, values and attitudes for their future lives. The campaign does not aim to develop the cricketing stars of the future. And although it’s possible they might find the next Andrew Strauss or Charlotte Edwards, their main aim is development through cricket.
Chance to Shine is a £50million national campaign that relies on corporate and individual charitable donations. To sustain the programme and achieve its target of reaching at least two million state school children by 2015, it needs to raise
£25million privately which the Government has pledged to match pound for pound.
How it works:
Chance to shine is delivered through individual projects across England and Wales. Each project provides a structured coaching and competition programme for a group of around six primary and secondary state schools.
The group of schools is supported by professional, qualified coaches engaged by one local cricket club.
The charity also provide equipment, facility development (including playground markings and non-turf pitches) as well as training for state school teachers and coaches.
Each project is funded for a minimum period of five years and once it’s ended,
Chance toshine works closely with schools and clubs to help them sustain cricket activities.
