I have been
teaching for almost 12 years now. For that time I have also coached football in
some manner to most ages from 11-18 and, as with my teaching, I have always
looked to improve my pedagogy.
Teaching takes
about 3 or 4 years to just develop your style. In you PGCE you see a few people
teach and you are observed by your tutor. I was lucky at Leeds Uni that my PGCE
tutor didn't try to mould me but let me figure out for myself, or at least try
to, what type of teacher I wanted to be. The old favourite of "don't smile
till Christmas" never really sat right with me as I felt teaching should
be about respect earned not forced. After a few years in the job you kind of
know what and how you want to teach but anyone that thinks they know it all is
headed down a frustrating path. Whenever I have mentored a new teacher I have
always stressed to them to never ever be too proud to ask for help and never
think that they know every way a student could need to learn.
This brings me to
the reason for writing this. Even though I have coached for 10 years or so I
had never done any qualifications in football as it was just something I
enjoyed doing. However, having worked alongside some great coaches it became
more than something I just enjoy doing. I am almost 34 and I have set myself a
6 year challenge. By the time I am 40 I would like to be UEFA qualified and
have the opportunity to work in youth football. Now I realise that is a massive
challenge but it is one I intend to give myself the best shot at.
When I returned
from living and teaching in NZ I decided to start the qualification route of
coaching. At this stage it was just to have something and not part of the plan.
On job applications (for teaching) I could talk about Auckland championships
won with school teams but it didn't really mean anything if I didn't hold an FA
qualification. I spoke to the London FA and decided to go straight onto my
Level 2. It was an interesting course. I felt it was a long way off the
coaching I had seen (from a UEFA B coach I had worked with) and so, so
different to teaching a lesson (which I had always based my coaching on).
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the badge and the learning that went with it. I
realised that I hadn't ever given enough technical detail to my players and
possibly that I needed to structure my sessions more in line with the
technique->skill->game-related structure. I have to say, however, that
whilst happy to do this to gain the badge I wasn't convinced that this was the
best way to learn.
In my classroom I
have tried to introduce a patient problem solving mentality alongside a
co-construction of the learning. This Level 2 style of See it, Stop it, Show
it, Rehearse it, Play was pretty much against my belief of education. It took
choices away from the players. It became the style of teaching that I didn't
like, one of 'my way is best and you should follow'. Thankfully I passed the
badge and became a Level 2 qualified coach. My feedback sheet for the future
recommended doing goalkeeping level 2 and all the youth modules before UEFA B.
Now you cannot apply for UEFA B without sending in this feedback sheet and so I
knew that if I wanted to go further I would have to investigate doing these
extra badges. I wasn't sure whether this was a genuine belief in what they
thought I should do or if it was a way for the FA to get more money from me.
Call me a cynic, or call me a teacher. So I took my Level 2 badge to my team at
school and started saving! Now, coaching a club is a different beast to
coaching a school team. The lads at school just wanted to play and so I had to
choose how much level 2 work we did. To be honest we did a lot more work on
shape and tactics than increasing technique and skill. We were successful in
the limited season of our school and so the boys were happy. Our emphasis was
on changing their shape from a rigid 442 to a more fluid 433. I managed to do a
few sessions on defending 1v1 and 2v2 but these had to be few and far between
as they just wanted to play. I ended up coaching through playing most of the time.
Changing decisions they made through questioning and working with a few
individuals on specific topics. Some of the football they played was excellent
and opposition coaches made frequent comment about their style. I remember in
the borough final we played a school with the simple tactic of any defender
hoofs it over the top to the fast lad up front. If he could have finished we
would have lost. We outfootballed them for the 60 minutes of normal time and
for the 10 mins of extra time and drew 0-0 eventually winning on penalties.
Whatever the result had been I would have been proud of the fact that the boys
tried to play in the right way. Every sub was used (not true of the opposition)
they played in a respectful manner. The opposition coach was screaming at his
players, left boys unused on the bench and didn’t say well done to my team at
the end which was disappointing.
Towards the end
of that school year, a change in circumstances meant that my partner and I were
leaving London for the sunny north of England. This would leave me jobless for
4 months between September and Christmas and so I looked at London FA and
Lancashire FA to see if I could do Youth Modules 1 and 2 in this time off.
Luckily I was able to do Youth Module 1 in South London and follow this up with
Youth Module 2 in Lancashire a couple of months later.
Youth Module 1
was a game changer for me. Whether it was the delivery from the FA team led by
Kalam Mooniaruck or the content or both i’m not sure but it felt like the FA
had this right. The ideas may be aimed at younger players but everything is
adaptable to any age of player. All of a sudden this was more like setting up a
good lesson at school. The way it was planned, the talk of desired outcomes for
the session, the way to differentiate the session for all players; these all
reminded me of my PGCE and first few years of teaching and planning. These
themes are continued in YM2 which I found to be equally enjoyable. The focus
this time was the different types of practice from circle work to grids and
endzones to constant, variable and random activities etc. Again, led by Ian
Bateman, the delivery was excellent and I feel that I learnt more and more as
the time went on.
YM1 and 2 gave me
a much better idea of the coach I had hoped to be. They seemed more focused on
player enjoyment and involvement when compared to Level 2. This point was
raised with Ian as to where YM1/2 sit with the FA compared to Level 2. The
easiest way to explain it is to look at them as two different pathways working
alongside eachother. The Level 1 > Level 2 > UEFA B > UEFA A pathway
is different to the YM1 > YM2 > YM3 > Youth Elite but equally
important. I feel that anyone working in football should be a minimum of Level
2 and YM1/2/3 to have seen this broad spectrum of learning and see where each
session should lie for their own team and even more importantly their own
individual players.
And so to Youth
Module 3. Since starting my new teaching job in January I have become involved
as much as I can with football at the school. I took over the Under 15 boys
team and despite the fact that several games were cancelled due to weather they
were keen to train and to learn and showed huge improvements in the few games
we did get to play. Even when losing 6-0 with 5 minutes to go they continued to
pass the ball and play properly and earn themselves a wonderful team goal. I
decided to ask the school about letting me do Youth Module 3 which they were
happy for me to do. Luckily the course runs not far from my work and once again
Ian Bateman is the lead tutor for the FA. Now this module has a lot more work
to do in it. YM1 and 2 have pre-course reading to do and tasks to complete as
you do the course but that is where they end. You plan and deliver your
sessions, get your feedback and then your certificate arrives in the post a few
weeks later. YM3 is slightly different and is split into 2 days at the start
and 2 days about 6 weeks later.The expectation is to try to complete 10
coaching sessions, fully planned and evaluated, in the space between. Then we
return for the 2 days and everyone delivers one of their sessions.
The emphasis of
YM3 is on a whole-part-whole mentality which again links to my style of
teaching and to different styles of intervention. I love to put a maths problem
on the board that the students can’t necessarily complete, break it down into
parts that we can solve and then return to the original problem and solve it. I
find that in the classroom this encourages my students to think, to try, to
evaluate whether something is working and then ask for help if they feel they
need it. This adapts perfectly to a training session. Let them play, watch,
intervene if you need to using various methods (this might be Level 2 style
‘stop-stand still’ or pulling individuals out for a second or setting
challenges to the whole group, a unit or an individual). Then set up a part
session to focus on something in particular. Use the players from the whole in
their positions. Then go back to the whole and see if they put the practice into
action.
The thing I
really like about the Youth Modules is that they feel more natural as a
teacher. At level 2 it felt like if a player made a mistake that you didn’t
stop the session to show how to do it properly then you were wrong. In the YMs
it feels like its fine for the players to make mistakes but through better
questioning and setting challenges you can let them figure out what to do to
improve.
There is an
assessment at the end of YM3 which I have 2 years to apply for. Most people on
the course work in football and have access to hours and hours of coaching time
and so will probably apply to do this straight away. I want to wait until I
have a team sorted for next season and put some hours in before having the
assessment. It takes the form of an interview and analysis of all your course
material and then the delivery of 1 or 2 sessions followed by a debrief. It is
included in the price of YM3 and is 100% worth doing but I don’t feel I have
matured enough as a coach yet to fully demonstrate what I might do. Just
putting on a session and filling in all the books correctly isn’t, in my
opinion, the making of a coach, it is the time put into doing the job.
So that said I am
looking forward to finding a club next season to apply all these techniques I
have learnt. Coaching at a school has its limitations on who can play due to
commitments, how many can get a lift home from after school training, equipment
etc etc which should, he says hopefully, be less of an issue at a club where
the players will come from around the area.
And so what of
the links between teaching and coaching? Well I believe that the links are huge
and I am genuinely shocked at the lack of teachers that make it to the
professional game as coaches. There is a massive issue in coaches not getting a
chance because they didn’t play football to a high level and therefore must not
know their stuff. Graham Henry (Rugby world cup winning coach of the All
Blacks) was a geography and PE teacher who just took some school teams (two of
the best schools for rugby in NZ though) and eventually left teaching to coach
full time. Currently Paul Clement has had some time in the media for his rise
in the coaching ranks. 13 years ago he was a PE teacher and aspiring coach in
South London and now he is assistant coach at PSG REAL MADRID!!!. Not bad eh! He worked on his
badges and got into football in the community with Chelsea and Fulham and went
from there. The problem is that breaking into football without being a name
that might be recognised is really hard. Maybe over the next 6 or 7 years I can
enjoy my coaching at school and at a club and network in the area and get to
know people. Maybe I can get involved with some football in the community work
as well.
As of right now I
know I have a lot to learn. I need to get some hours in doing the actual
coaching. Finally settling in an area should help this. I’m in contact with
Cheshire FA to try and find a club that is doing things the right way. I would
love to apply to do my UEFA B license in a couple of years. Then maybe one day
I can be a teacher who managed to work his way into football as his job. It’s
good to have a goal.
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