Hi Mark Abbott 

Great question!

Thank you Jamie Griffiths  for tagging me. Happy to have a go at helping. I think the best approach is the relate training to these skills and challenge players within games and sessions. If children are engaged and having fun then brilliant, now can we challenge players individually or in small teams to develop. When playing these fun games, can you ask players to dribble a specific way e.g. small touches with various parts of the foot. Can you add an element to challenge players further. One I use all the time to develop scanning is holding up coloured cones and players have to shout that colour. This way its fun, a little silly but players are learning to dribble whilst looking up and scanning the pitch.

Then over time this will develop to can you see a gap between two players to dribble through for a point. Praise works really well and highlighting the correct skill, technique and behaviours. There is so much you can do with developing players technically whilst keeping them engaged and enjoying sessions. 

A great example is the video below where the game is related to real footballers, different technical skills and is a little messy but that works so well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBiixo3KBYs

I think the best approach is to slip in little bits of technical information to players and see how they cope, those that feed off it can then be pushed further and it will help you get to know your players. You'll see the coach in the video challenge players individually which comes back to knowing your players. 

There's no right or wrong way to approach it so I would give players nuggets of information and see how they cope. Let us know how you get on and it would be great t hear any successes you have.

Thanks, Will

Firstly, jamie and Will , I was well chuffed to see this response on a Google search I did!!thank you very much for getting back to me sorry for delay in replying , i wasn’t sure anyone would respond! Really helpful feedback on that and I will now go away and watch that video and follow the links that you suggested Jamie! Brilliant!! Can I ask- would you say then it’s best to steer away from individual ball mastery in a session (like you see on you tube etc) for U8 and input into fun sessions , challenging kids individually like you say. Maybe encourage kids/parents to practice that sort of stuff- toe taps inside outside etc etc at home . 

One more ask…it would be amazing if you could send me any ideas/videos for this…(as I’ve been searching and searching online and can only find individual stuff nothing on taking a whole group of players for a ball mastery session eg 24 or so at once) so on Friday I’m taking a large group session for 10/15 mins - it’s U8’s and we do ball mastery every week for an arrival activity. I’d love to find/use a group session that is fun and game based but is ball mastery- different to just all kids dribbling around doing different skills. I’d like to mix it up for them , freshen it up to make it fun but still really beneficial to ball mastery! Would love your help/thoughts here guys. 
thank you so much again for your time and sharing your experience and knowledge it’s so helpful! 

Firstly, jamie and Will , I was well chuffed to see this response on a Google search I did!!thank you very much for getting back to me sorry for delay in replying , i wasn’t sure anyone would respond! Really helpful feedback on that and I will now go away and watch that video and follow the links that you suggested Jamie! Brilliant!! Can I ask- would you say then it’s best to steer away from individual ball mastery in a session (like you see on you tube etc) for U8 and input into fun sessions , challenging kids individually like you say. Maybe encourage kids/parents to practice that sort of stuff- toe taps inside outside etc etc at home . 

One more ask…it would be amazing if you could send me any ideas/videos for this…(as I’ve been searching and searching online and can only find individual stuff nothing on taking a whole group of players for a ball mastery session eg 24 or so at once) so on Friday I’m taking a large group session for 10/15 mins - it’s U8’s and we do ball mastery every week for an arrival activity. I’d love to find/use a group session that is fun and game based but is ball mastery- different to just all kids dribbling around doing different skills. I’d like to mix it up for them , freshen it up to make it fun but still really beneficial to ball mastery! Would love your help/thoughts here guys. 
thank you so much again for your time and sharing your experience and knowledge it’s so helpful!