The FA’s Pete Sturgess kicks off his first blog series which is designed to help people who are taking their first steps as a coach with players aged 5-11. Here he discusses what should be prioritised to help players develop and have fun.

Hi coaches, welcome to the new FA community platform. This is the first in what I hope will be a whole series of blogs to help you become the best and most effective Foundation Phase coach that you can be.

I hope the blogs will create discussion and debate so that what emerges will be a clear and consistent direction for us to follow regarding the coaching of our young children. Feel free to comment below or share your thoughts in our forums.

I want to start with a series of challenging questions. Where on any FA qualifications, courses or CPD events are the following advocated or suggested as good practice?

• Coaches and parents should shout and criticise children in order to improve their enjoyment, performance and motivation to keep coming back to football.
• Coaches should use long lines of players in order to provide opportunities to develop individual technique and enjoyment of training.
• Coaches should use language, terminology and concepts that children do not understand in order for them to improve at football.

I could go on but hopefully my point is made. I’m sure none of the above have ever been suggested by an FA tutor as something to try with your team, yet this kind of behaviour and practice continues to be an issue. The question is, where does it come from?

There has been a big improvement in how our children are developed in an age appropriate way but there’s still a long way to go. That’s because there’s still a lot of poor practice out there and this is where our community can play a big part in changing things for the better.

A great place to start is to clearly define what those ‘golden’ Foundation Phase years are for, as this will surely influence our behaviour and our practice.

Children of this age are at the perfect time of their development to learn new things and to establish a life-long love of being active, fit and healthy. This must be our priority.

Players need to have the opportunity to:

• develop a fantastic touch and feel on the ball – this will only come through having plenty of ball contacts (so no long lines please)
• move in lots of different ways and for lots of different reasons (sessions should be full of energy, movement and fun)
• have problems to solve, new things to discover and develop a curious and flexible approach to learning new things (let’s introduce them to the joy of learning through a games-based approach).

Prioritising these things will ensure that development is maximised in line with where the players are developmentally. You prioritise individual skill, movement and enjoyment now and you will be putting something quite special in place for the future.

Helping your young players become exceptional decision-makers and problem solvers will mean they’re able to react appropriately to any situation that occurs in a game. This is what will help your team become successful.

However, it’s a long process and one that will challenge your ability as a coach, your beliefs about young player development and your patience because this approach is not easy. But with the support of our community we will help you understand how to do this as effectively as possible, so look out for my next blog.