[00:00:13,500] [Jamie:] Hello and welcome to coach cast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game today. We're trying to James Richards and F A regional physical education officer to discover his journey so far and to explore how we can develop skillful players through PE. Hi James, welcome back to the studio. How are you?
[00:00:30,060] [James Richard:] Good, thank you. Good to be back. [Louise:] Yeah, really nice to have you back on again, James. What we're going to do to start off with is just to find out for people who haven't heard your previous episode a little bit more about you and your role at the FA. Could you tell us what it is that you actually do?
[00:00:45,480] [James Richards:] Yeah, so I'm in the physical education team, half of a wider grassroots delivery team, so I work in team East, directly responsible for East Midlands. My role is around supporting and developing coaches who work with teachers in delivering physical education and we also directly support teachers through our CPD, whether that be our online platform or our face-to-face sessions. We can organise them through the clubs that we work with. We also have links with universities, so we support their trainee teachers and part of the girls football school's partnerships as well we link in with them and do primary and secondary teacher CPD as well. [Jamie:] Brilliant, thanks for that James. Well before we dive further in to find out a little bit more about you and your journey, as this is a coaching podcast listeners could be on the way to training right now, so we always think it's a good idea to give them some good advice at the top of the show.
[00:01:38,140] [Louise:] Yep, so we're calling this your arrival activity, so just a little icebreaker for you. So we're going to give you 30 seconds, and we're going to ask you for as many top coaching tips as you can. You up for that?
[00:01:50,220] [James Richards:] I'll give it a go.
[00:01:52,540] [Louise:] Okay, right. We've got some music so when that starts you can begin.
[00:01:57,720] [James Richards:] Okay, so first one is Really get to know your players, your needs, your wants, talk to them, but more importantly, listen to them as well and interact with them because building relationships is probably one of the the biggest things in coaching and in teaching. Harness the power of play. I think look back at all the games that we used to play as kids and that made them so enjoyable. Bring them back to life in your own sessions. I think kids will really respond to that.
[00:02:28,620] [Jamie:] Oh there we go
[00:02:29,700] [James Richard:] That was quick. [Jamie:] Yeah it was but some really good top tips there, really good. Right well let's dive straight in shall we and we always start off our shows at this section about find out what was your first experience of football like?
[00:02:43,040] [James Richard:] Informal with friends really, So I grew up in Scotland and they weren't as focused on football, particularly in PE, it was more rugby. So I played a lot of rugby as a child and a couple of my friends were kind of interested in football. So we played that at lunch times and after school a little bit mixed in with rugby. It wasn't until I moved back to England and in secondary school where obviously the focus was much more on football and everybody was playing football so yeah that's when I started really picking it up and playing break times after school, really whenever you could. It was that kind of, you'd get home from school, you'd do your homework on the bus, you'd get home from school, you'd go out at half past three, you'd get back at nine o'clock at night, playing football at the local field. So those were my first experiences of football.
[00:03:31,280] [Louise:] So it sounds like it was a really fun thing that you wanted to do. Would you say it was a good experience that you had growing up?
[00:03:37,540] [James Richard:] I think because you're with your friends that was the big thing you know you're out playing play football with your friends and we had control of it because we our group of friends didn't necessarily join a club or anything like that, we just had a control over what games we played, how we played, when we played. So yeah, very positive experience with the friendship group.
[00:03:56,380] [Jamie:] How long have you been involved with the game then? [James Richard:] Professionally, when I probably started getting involved in coaching, I'd say 18, 19 years now. I got my first taste of it at university. Obviously, being interested in football, I tried to do some sports related courses. So I did sports studies at A-levels and then the psychology aspect of that kind of hooked me into university and I did a sports psychology degree. And on that degree course, it was a module around sports coaching that kind of sparked the interest. And then when leaving, leaving university, it was right, what do I do now? What careers can I go into? And I thought well sports psychology wasn't as popular at the time there wasn't many careers in that in that field so I thought I can use that in coaching so I looked at doing a level one, didn't really know much about the football landscape, did the level one and then, yeah, started looking for jobs and I think Leeds United were looking for coaches. So I joined Leeds United whilst doing my level two and a masters. So yeah, and then kind of eventually progressed to the FA. Yeah. So it's been now 19 years of being involved. Long time.
[00:05:05,740] [Louise:] So when you started, it was obviously you caught the bug for it. But what was your first experience of coaching actually like? If you take us back to what that felt like.
[00:05:14,640] [James Richard:] It was in a PE environment. So I had part time work before joining Leeds United. I had a part time work with another company that went into schools and delivered physical education, well football sessions. I was in physical education in curriculum time and I can remember having not had much information about what or how to deliver. I'd only really done my level one, hadn't had a lot of experience and I'm there on this field and I can just see a very excited group of year ones bashing at the glass door, raring to get out. I think it'd just been after lunch as well and they were all sugared up and the door opened and they came racing at me and needless to say it was a car crash. It was 30 year one children racing around me and I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing. I'm just trying to manage, you know, taking some of the old level one games that I was shown and just trying to manage that group of 30. Yeah, it was a tough experience, but it makes you stronger. I always say it makes you stronger. [Jamie:] Looking at that experience, if someone who's listening now has either had that experience or might go on to have that experience in PE dealing with lots of young kids, what advice would you give them given that that's what you went through? [James Richard:] Expect it not to go to plan because it probably won't. You're trying to meet the needs of a lot of young children and their needs can be vast. So just don't expect everything to go perfect. Don't try to hang on to control because it's not going to happen. You're going to have to be adaptable and you're going to be tired at the end of that session. And then on that, just try and have maybe get the miniature games going. And when I say games, I don't mean matches. I mean, like miniature games, multiple games of things like Stuck in the Mud or Bulldog or whatever, games that keep them active and engaged, will get them moving and then you can add in footballs and objects and all that kind of stuff. So as long as they're doing, that's probably the biggest thing for me because if they're doing, they're not messing about somewhere else.
[00:07:15,060] [Jamie:] What would you say you enjoy most about coaching? [James Richard:] There's two sides to it. One is working with players and children. So in a PE environment, working with the children in a football environment, I refer to them as players and seeing their successes and just how happy they are when they achieve. When you see a child do something, like an amazing trick, that like even blows you away as a coach, and you see the delight on their face, I think that's brilliant. That's a really good feeling. Even if you've had no involvement in actually teaching them that trick, it's still nice to see it. And then from the coaching aspect as well, it's just the people you work with. There's a lot of really interesting, experienced people in the game, in teaching as well. So just interacting with them. So People ask me what's it like working for the FA? It's again, it's working with some fantastic people. That's kind of what motivates me, I suppose, every day.
[00:08:07,580] [Jamie:] I like that. [Louise:] So you've mentioned, obviously, there's a lot of things that you can learn in coaching, but what would you say are the key attributes and skills that go into making a transformational coach or a teacher?
[00:08:20,280] [James Richard:] Oh, patience is one of them. Adaptability is really, really important. I mentioned before about you can plan as much as you want, but as soon as those players, children come out, things are going to change. So you have to be prepared to adapt. And you can plan a bit of that and you can plan to prepare for that. But there'll be curveballs all the time. So you've just got to be adaptable and be able to go with changes, which comes with experience. So I suppose getting out and delivering as much as you possibly can so that you get those experiences and build like a toolkit that you can then be adaptable with, be approachable and be able to develop relationships with people because that's what it's about. You're working with people. They're not, it's not some by-product at the end of the day where they're just going to become football players or anything like that. It's you're working with people who go on to have great lives, hopefully. So building relationships is really, really important.
[00:09:16,020] [Jamie:] Were you inspired by any coaches or teachers in your past and if so what did you learn from them?
[00:09:21,560] [James Richard:] When I look back, so the coaching, that's because through my childhood I probably never really accessed formal teams. We didn't have coach, I didn't really have a coach in a formal capacity but I do remember one of my PE teachers at primary school, and it links back to what I was saying about developing relationships, was he was one of the first teachers I remember who seemed to be interested in what the children were saying. You can pick up an impression of someone who is, who asks you a question but you know isn't listening to you because of the way they respond or where they're looking or what they're doing. But he seemed to be, and I was very young at the time so I have no idea if this, you know, if it was true or not, but he seemed to be someone that would listen to you and respond with a question or respond with an answer and he was always very positive. I think that's the stuff that children need is someone that they can interact with and someone that's going to be positive and encouraging. So yeah, I remember, I do remember him.
[00:10:17,980] [Jamie:] It's nice that he obviously had an impact on you because you sat here now telling us that he's in your memory and that you've learnt that from him as well. How important is that skill in terms of engaging and motivating players in sessions? [James Richard:] It's massive isn't it? You're trying to get and trying to help and develop people. And that's the word you're trying to help and develop people. And we've talked in the past about like holistic development, the four corners. It's not just technical, physical, you know, we're trying to try to interact with people who've got a lot of things going on in their lives. Children have, depending on their age, have lots of things going on, whether it's growth spurts, exams, whatever it is, things going on at home. And you've just got to be able to show that empathy with them. And they're not there just to turn up and listen to and tell them, you know, what to do. They want a bit of interaction with it. It's their game. So, yeah, it is very, very important.
[00:11:06,820] [Louise:] Okay. So it sounds like you've picked up a lot of really great skills as you've been going along in your career. But if we jump back to where you were telling us about the journey from finishing university and then joining the FA. Is there any other things that are from any of the other jobs that you've had between that time? Any other skills or different things that you can think of that have added to how you work now? [James Richard:] Well I suppose looking at my career I've been very fortunate in that I jumped very quickly from university within two years to the FA and within those two years between that I was at Leeds United and I was at a private sports company for a bit. Part of the roles was developing relationships with teachers, whether that be trying for the sports company, was trying to get them to buy in, I suppose, or it's almost like salesman-like skills, which is interesting because you do develop, it's that communication, those communication skills around how do you interact with people, negotiating, and when I say negotiate I'm not saying battering for a price or anything like that, I'm talking about just like when there's a bit of conflict and you know they want something but you want to deliver something else, just developing those kind of, you know, conflict resolution kind of skills, which they all lend themselves to coaching because you will find yourself when you're interacting with children, they're going to misbehave or they're going to want to do something different or you're going to have to, one of the big things is about trying to get them to own the session, have a bit more autonomy and make some decisions, which you have to kind of help communicate and guide them through that process. All those communication skills that you're developing are quite important. I think those experiences have helped me. I probably don't recognise it at the time, but I suppose when people look back at all of their experiences, they're all shaping what you've done. And I always say this to people who are jumping onto a level one course, don't just see it as you're doing a level one course that's going to just help you to live a football. Look at the other skills that you're developing that will help you in your career. And even if you, you know, you might have a job as a lawyer or a salesman or whatever it is, but the things you're learning on this course may be transferable. You might not recognise it, but they may help. And as you start coaching, you're getting more experiences, you will come up with experiences, for example, dealing with parents, you know, you're developing skills all the time. So yeah, you need to need to look back and reflect.
[00:13:29,060] [Louise:] Yeah, definitely.
[00:13:30,240] [Jamie:] Looking at your role now, James, what is it that you like delivering and also helping people to deliver PE?
[00:13:38,000] [James Richard:] I think it's just the impact that we can have. If you look at the amount of children that probably don't access physical activity, activities or sports outside of school, And I'm not necessarily saying that that's what PE is about. It's not about getting kids to just to play sport beyond on school. It's just about giving them the opportunity if they wanted to. We want to try and engage children. We want them to make them more physically active. We want them to feel more confident and competent. We've got a lot of children that are accessing sports, but we've got a lot of children that aren't. So if we can get that right, and we can provide stimulating environments, engaging environments where the children realise that PE, physical activity, sport, is fun, then I see it as improving the nation, improving, you know, they're going to go into civilisation, they're going to be in society, they're going to have jobs, and if they're feeling more physically confident and confident, then hopefully it makes their life a little bit better. Whether that is if they just feel like they can go to the gym, whether it is they feel they can go for a walk, whether it's doing mundane tasks at home, cleaning, for example, anything that just, you know, improves their quality of life. I think we've got a real opportunity to do that if they go and access sport, if they go and access football, if they go on to be the next elite international football player for us, then that's even better. But that's not the sole purpose. That's what I really enjoy about it is the impact that we can have.
[00:14:58,680] [Louise:] Yeah. And I think there's The role that PE has is like, like you say, is really important. What advice would you give to anyone who is aspiring to get involved in teaching PE?
[00:15:09,480] [James Richard:] I guess it depends on where they're coming from. So obviously, if they're early in their career, I would always advise them to go and do their teacher training. However, that might not be the line of work that they want to go into, if that makes sense. So, if they're going into a teaching career, obviously you do your teaching qualifications, but then I would say access as many different resources as you possibly can. So, for example, our PE team go into a number of universities and deliver our teacher CPD program to trainee students. So them accessing that would be a good start, accessing the resources that are out there online, there's loads of them. Look at other national governing bodies and what they deliver and just try and get a bank of knowledge just to kind of support them in their delivery. If you're taking it from like a different angle like as a sports coach, I think one they need to try and get a level two qualification in the sport that they're delivering so that they meet their standards that are set out for delivery. Look at other qualifications that they possibly can do for example if they can't access a teacher training qualification due to time or whatever then they can look at maybe a Masters in Education or if they've got the time to do that for example or a PGCert, anything that has, provides them with that educational context because working in schools is not the same as working as a sports coach. So they need to try and kind of upskill their knowledge around that aspect, if that makes sense.
[00:16:34,540] [Jamie:] What would you say, because you mentioned there, not being the same, what would be the key differences between those two roles?
[00:16:39,800] [James Richard:] I think there's a load of things thrown at you. For example, one, you're led by the national curriculum. It's not sports specific. You're embedding school values that the schools will have and you're following all their policies and procedures. You're in a completely different environment in terms of the space equipment. You're usually teaching up to classes of 30, whereas in normal sports coaching environments you might have 16, so you've got 30, you've got a wider range of abilities. There's a lot of differences that you have to try and deal with. It's not as straightforward as people think.
[00:17:10,200] [Jamie:] What are the key things that you think people need to consider when they're delivering PE lessons? [James Richard:] Okay, so understanding obviously the group that you have in front of you, where are they at within their development, so this is getting a lot, trying to get as much information, I mean if you're the class teacher you will have this information, if you're a coach going in then you're going to need to liaise with the teacher a lot to figure out what the class is capable of, what have they done before, who's within the class, almost trying to profile different groupings so you know what to expect. I think you've got to then think about how you manage the difference, have different activities in mind, so how you support that group so you've kind of identified their needs, then it's planning in how am I going to manage the group within that so that I can help them progress. I think those would be the key things, understanding them, how are you going to support them, how are you going to help them progress, what strategies are you going to put in place to manage the difference that you're going to be faced with. Yeah, those would be my starting points.
[00:18:04,460] [Louise:] Would you say that PE can actually help develop skillful players? And if so, how would you say that it does that?
[00:18:10,920] [James Richard:] Oh, yeah, definitely. I see PE really as the base of everything. Like I said before, if we get PE right, you know, hopefully then more children will look to access other opportunities beyond school. So we've got a real opportunity at developing skills and putting them in a position where they might feel a bit more confident going into clubs. I think I look back at my experience as a child, I probably didn't feel confident enough to go into a sports club and play. I think I always felt I was a bit behind, especially when I came back to England and all my friends had been playing football for a lot longer than I had. I probably never felt that confidence to go in and I think PE environments can really help shape children. I think I talked about in the top tips around harnessing the power of play. I think particularly at a primary level we can start to think back to all of those games that we used to play, like the tag-based games we used to play, which can incorporate objects like footballs, basketballs, rugby balls and all that kind of stuff. And we can start introducing children and letting children explore how to move and how to move with objects and how to interact with objects without necessarily having to label it as a sport. We don't have to label it as this is football, this is basketball, this is rugby. We can just say we're going to explore how to travel with a ball, let the children get an object and go, right, can you can you try and move and bounce? Can you try and move and kick? Can you try and move and carry? And now can you do it whilst trying to beat people? Those are going to develop skills that kids could take into multiple activities beyond school. So that's how we start developing skills. If you think about even just playing tag, you know, all the stuff you need around scanning, looking, body movements, body position, deception, all that kind of stuff that we talk about when trying to develop skill, they're all there. What we're trying to do is just introduce the kids to this so that they can then, you know, if they develop that confidence, maybe they will go and access more opportunities. Or even if it's just so that they can go and play out with their friends. You know, I think one of the biggest success stories I've ever had is a child being invited out by his friends to play football on the street. You know, he was very low in confidence. And I remember talking to his dad about just how he's, he's not, he doesn't feel like he can participate. And he participated in some of our physical education lessons and this was a long time ago, but he came back and said that all of a sudden his son was asking to go out and play and some of his friends were coming and calling on him and asking him to come out and play and I think that's that's what we want. It's just providing the base so that they have opportunities.
[00:20:42,380] [Jamie:] Yeah I love that, that's really nice to hear. How can you use PE to promote learning across each section of the FA's four corner model? [James Richard:] Whenever you watch children play, I think it's happening already. Whether, you know, if even if you don't have a focus on it, if you watch children, you've got technical and physical returns going on straight away because they're moving, they're active and you can enhance them by setting challenges and tasks for example but it's already going on. Your job might be to identify what you feel they need and this is a two-way street So you're hopefully engaging with the children as well around their needs and wants. And you can focus in on particular corners for six weeks, 12 weeks, whatever it is, knowing that other areas will be developed or you can have a broader focus if you want. But then if you look at the other two aspects, like for example, social and psych corner, we talk about maybe managing the difference so that children get success, building their confidence. Or we might talk about maybe trying to influence The rules so that they have to maybe persevere with tasks be a bit more resilient. So you've got things like that going on we do stuff around communication and showing respect and fairness So you can build it into your games around like when you win at a game how are you going to interact with your opponent? What are you going to do? And you show like handshakes, fist bumps, you know, not celebrating in their face. You can embed these messages into PE, into sports coaching lessons as well. So it's just looking at the four corners, looking at the needs and wants of the group and then thinking right what do I want to focus on to help them get better and it could be it could fall within any one of those four corners or you could have maybe one or two spread across them. So today I'm focused on developing our agility to help us evade opponents. And at the same time, we're developing our ability to interact with our teammates and our opposition to be fair or something like that. Those could be two focuses for the lesson. And you will have then questions, challenges built in so that you can then, you know, help guide them and talk to them about different things that are going on from the lesson.
[00:22:58,420] [Louise:] You mentioned briefly there managing difference. Is there anything specifically that would help you manage difference in PE? [James Richard:] We always promote the STEP principle, which I think a lot of people are aware of, which is this obviously space, task, equipment and people. I use that in two ways. One, I kind of use it as a planning tool. So I look at how I can use the step principle and modify spaces, introduce tasks, change the equipment, add or take away people that would help children explore different movements, different skills. So for example, if there's a good game that I think is probably on our YouTube site called Cat and Mouse, it basically, one player is the tagger and one player is being chased and they play around a shape, usually a square. And then you can add objects if you want to, and you can dribble a ball or bounce a ball or whatever. But if you manipulate the shape, for example, if you make it a triangle and you make it quite a longer triangle, what you then start encouraging the children to explore is they can sprint because there's a longer side on the triangle and there's a sharper change of direction at the top of it. And then when I've seen children, and I've done this with children, especially when they're dribbling footballs, they all of a sudden start to explore different ways of turning on the ball. So they get to that sharp angle and they might use the outside of their foot to shift it to go the other way or they might do a drag back. And I don't necessarily need to even tell them or show them how to do that. They just start to explore. I can go in and help them if I want to or if they're struggling, but often I can just manipulate the shape and see what they come up with. So I use it as a planning tool and I use it to think about how I might encourage them to explore, but then obviously I've got it as well as in the moment I know that I can potentially modify the space if it's too tight and they're not getting much success, or I can add in rules that might, for example, might add in a rule that the the defenders have to to carry or dribble a football themselves, just to slow them down and give the attackers a bit more of an opportunity. Or I can make overloads and underloads, so it might be a 4v2. If I was doing, for example, sending and receiving, you'd like to think that maybe the 4 would get a bit more sending and receiving against 2 rather than it being matched up. So I know I can use the step principle as well to adapt the activity there and then to cope with what's going on in front of me.
[00:25:19,960] [Jamie:] You mentioned it a little bit there when you was on about like changing shapes. How important is it for kids to problem solve and then to find their own solutions in games such as that and how can coaches and teachers encourage them to do so?
[00:25:33,560] [James Richard:] I think it's very important because if you think about us wanting skilful players, well, when we look at how they move and particularly in invasion games, if you ever watch them, no solution is ever identical. So it's always slight, it might be similar and it might be slightly, but it's, you know, it's always been modified. It's always slightly different. So that's why it's important that we allow them to find their own solutions, their own ways. That's not to say we can't help. We can definitely help. We could even show, but it's not saying it's this is the way to do it because they will need, in the moment that they're playing, in the context that we're trying to prepare them for, they're gonna have to be able to adapt. So it might be because they've received the ball, you know, the balls may be played them too softly or they've had a heavy touch or the defenders come out at a different angle or there's more defenders. There's thousands of variables that can happen and they've got to be able to solve the moment there and then. There's no coach, there's no teacher that's going to say, let's just stop the game for a second whilst they figure this out. It's not going to happen. They've got to be able to adapt in the moment. So having our lessons and having our coaching sessions where we can encourage that. So again, planning, you step to planning different, you know, ways of encouraging them to explore and then stepping back and just letting them figure things out for a bit. I think as teachers, as coaches, we may be quite eager to get in and say, it might be, I don't know if it's external pressures thinking that if I'm not talking I'm not doing my job. I always say, look, let the practice do a bit of the work for you. Step back and watch and just see what's going on. Give yourself some time. And then you know you've got the tool, the step principle. Start thinking about what am I going to do here? Do I need to help? Do I need to maybe just adapt it so I can encourage them to explore new ways? Do I need to go in because they're really struggling? Or maybe actually they're really striving ahead and I need to make it harder. But it's giving yourself that time to step back and watch. And I think that's a difficult thing to do sometimes because I think we always want to be in there, we always want to be doing, but I think I've had to pinch myself sometimes, just step back, just watch what's going on, talk less. [Jamie:] So it's ultimately letting them be able to solve problems themselves and figure out their own solutions will help develop skillful players effectively.
[00:27:49,740] [James Richard:] Yeah, exactly. That's what we talk about. A skillful player of mine is someone that can solve the problem, can provide the solution to the problem that's in front of them. And they're using their body and they're controlling the object in ways. And the problems are so vast, you know, we can't drill in a technique to them that's going to be appropriate for, you know, every solution that's going to be required. So it's helping them along the way, showing them, showing them stuff, letting them explore stuff and then hopefully that helps them to become a little bit more adaptable, a little bit more flexible in the moments that they need it. They will still make mistakes, just like in any game, even at the elite level, there's loads of mistakes happening because that's the nature of the game.
[00:28:32,440] [Louise:] I guess there's an element of kind of informal play to that a little bit. And we know that kind of informal play can be a really important tool for developing skills. So can you tell us how you can harness the essence of informal play into games or just endure in PE?
[00:28:50,460] [James Richard:] I suppose I always used to say, think back to the games that we used to play on the streets and try and incorporate them into your lessons. So things like Bulldog, Kirby. I'm going to probably say loads of games that people have never heard of now showing my age or something, but there was the Slam, Kirby, Bulldog, Wembley, Hopscotch, I didn't play Hopscotch, but there was things like Hopscotch, there's skipping, There's loads of different activities. And I suppose what we can do from a coach, teacher perspective is if you have the opportunity to just, when kids are playing or at the start of a session, just let them come on and see what they do. If you're in a school environment, watch them at playtime and see what games they come up with. This is where your relationships are important. Speak to children about games that they're playing and what is their current terminology for things because they have fantastic ideas. They are the kids, they are the masters of play. So it's how do we figure out what games they're playing and can we incorporate them? You'll find they're not too dissimilar to the games that we used to play. They've just probably got different names for them. But yeah, that's what I would say is just try and remember what it was like and bring that in into your sessions or lessons. [Louise:] Yeah, I guess it's incorporating things like imagination and all of those kind of things as well, which is really important.
[00:30:06,600] [James Richard:] Well, yeah, I think that's the beauty of play. I think I always look at, and when I speak to my boys about it, when they want to play a match, they've got this imagination that they're scoring a goal in the final. And they're imagining they're playing in front of millions of people. They strive for that kind of stuff. Every time I talk to my son about taking him to a football session, he's asking, is it at a stadium? That's what they kind of dream about, that's what they imagine. They pick players to emulate, so that's what's going through their head. Imagination is very, very powerful.
[00:30:38,260] [Jamie:] And that's quite a good thing for developing skilful players as well, I imagine, as a coach being able to go, well, what's your favourite player, what are they, you know, what's their skill that they do to maybe go out and practice as well? [James Richard:] Oh yeah, I mean if you can, if you can capture that, I mean you've got to be very mindful, particularly in a PE environment, not everybody loves football, so you know you've got to be mindful of how you do that and maybe I wouldn't necessarily use it as a tactic for the whole class, you know, sit down in front of me and say, right, everybody imagine a football player or imagine your favourite sports person because not everybody in that class would be interested in that or probably even know of that kind of stuff. Whereas you could use it as a powerful individual tool to go in and speak to some of the maybe the boys and girls who who play football outside school if you know this information and you can talk to them and say well look at the players that you know that you like and what kind of things do they do you know that can be that yeah that can be very very good to get them to think.
[00:31:32,800] [Jamie:] Talking about games, there's a section of the PECPD for Teachers programme that is based on the learning through games approach. Can you give us a little bit of an insight into what this is and how it can help teachers to create an environment that is fun and engaging, but is also one that encourages skill development. [James Richard:] So I suppose everything that I've already kind of spoken about is captured in that module. We kind of explore what makes a game, and again we're very keen to emphasise when we say game we're not meaning a match and we know kids want to play, love to play matches but from a PE environment we've got to remember we're not dealing with 30 footballers in front of us. So it's again harnessing that, what games did we play and what makes the game a game? So like, what are the rules? What are the problems? What solutions might they need to come up with? Do they get to cooperate with people? Do they play against people? Is it competitive in nature? Are there scoring mechanisms? It's trying to think about all those little aspects of games and how we can bring some of that into our lessons. It talks about the power of the play and thinking about how we use step again to help explore different movements, different solutions to problems. We also talk about what are you trying to achieve? So looking at the national curriculum, what are the outcomes of the national curriculum? What are you trying to work towards? And then using that very specific outcome and try and plan your lesson around that and then use the step principle to kind of think about, okay, how do I support the people's progress within that? That's kind of like, I've thrown a lot in there, it's a lot easier when you're bringing it to life face-to-face with teachers and students, but those are the kind of things we talk about and just like how we can use the power of games to help children explore different skillful movements.
[00:33:19,540] [Jamie:] Following on from that and to wrap up this part of the show, do you want to tell our listeners all about the PE CPD that they can access?
[00:33:27,340] [James Richard:] Yeah, we have two kind of aspects to it. We have our online CPD offer, that's four modules. I think each module takes around 20 minutes to complete and each module is certificated so once you do the first one you can then move on to the second one and you can download your certificates as you go along, free of charge to access and I think you can go on to our website and just, there's a little PE section which you can go into and yeah, like I said, you can access that. I think the four modules are looking at holistic development, learning through games, high quality teaching and learning, and mapping a PE curriculum. And then the face-to-face offer, which we organise through a variety of different people. The face-to-face offer kind of builds on those four modules and we try and bring them to life by demonstrating some of the games that we can use. So they complement each other very, very well. We often encourage people to come on the face-to-face, jump on the online modules because it kind of just refreshes them but also probably picks up on a few things that we probably will miss on the day. So our face-to-face offer, we organise them through our CCO network, so we have we have primary and secondary I should say. The online modules integrate both primary and secondary. On our face to face we have primary focused courses and secondary focused courses. And like I said, we organise those through our CCO network. We have our girls football schools partnerships. They also organise a number of events and we also link in with a number of universities. So we have a lot of key partners trying to set up these courses, just like I said, just to try and have a wider reach, I guess. So, yeah, that's that's the the offer in a nutshell.
[00:34:57,100] [Jamie:] Brilliant. Thank you.
[00:34:58,020] [Louise:] Yeah, so much to for people to get involved with. So, yeah, really good to hear all about that. So as Jamie said, we're moving on to our next section now, which is where we take a question from our England football community and we put that to you. So basically I found one that we think would be quite good for you to answer if you're up for that.
[00:35:18,180] [James Richard:] Yeah, ofcourse.
[00:35:18,480] [Louise:] So this one is, basically, there's a grassroots coach working with under nines and they've asked what coaching methods do you use to help coach a team who are massively mixed in terms of ability? We talked about that a little bit before, but have you got any tips for this person?
[00:35:37,060] [James Richard:] I think the best thing that we can do, and I think this works well in P environment as well, is having small activities where everyone's working towards the same thing, but the activities are small in number. So for example, I might have 1v1 mini games going on amongst my group, but I know within each 1v1 I can go in and again, using the step principle, I can go in and intervene and make it harder or easier if I need to without affecting everybody else because the needs are going to be so vast you're going to have very very good and those are just trying to develop so if I have 1v1s I could potentially go up to one pair and say, can you play a tag-based game, no objects, just trying to learn how to dodge and evade each other. Whereas on another one I could probably say, actually I could join this pair with another pair and they could be playing a 2v2. Now they're in a space, You'll have a defined space where they're playing, but everyone's working on, say for example, dodging and evading. But some are doing it without an object, some are doing it in a more 2v2 or maybe overloaded or underloaded. And you're not affecting everybody. Because a lot of the time our sessions, kind of, everybody does the same thing. Everybody line up, everybody does shooting, but actually not everybody needs that. Whereas if we can have almost multiple mini games going on in our session and allowing the kids then to have a go at that and I can walk around as a coach or a teacher and I can go right, OK, I can make an adaptation just for you two rather than everybody. So that'll be one of my best tips, I think, is using Step, have mini games going on. And like I said, you can even do that even if you're even if it is a whole group activity, like, for example, let's say a bulldog type game or a tag based game, it's then maybe walking around with to the individuals and giving them challenges if they're maybe striving ahead. It's just working out how do you help individuals without impacting everybody else? I think that'd be my biggest top tip.
[00:37:35,080] [Louise:] And is there a way you'd go about communicating that to say, you can tell that someone's struggling a little bit, how would you go about communicating that so they don't feel kind of picked out?
[00:37:45,140] [James Richard:] I try not to make a, I don't, obviously I don't go up and say, oh, you're struggling with this. You know, what I do is I kind of, I probably set the scene with the whole group saying, I'm going to go around and I'm going to introduce new challenges. I'm not going to tell them whether these are the easy challenges, these are the hard ones. I'm not going to do anything like that. What I'll probably do is say, right, okay, I'm going to introduce challenges and I'm going to go around and because everyone's playing and actively engaged, nobody really knows what I'm doing and who I'm changing it for because everybody's actively involved in the session. So it's, if everybody's actively engaged and I'm walking around I go right I've got a new challenge for you try it like this and I might just let them try it for three or four minutes and then bring a bring the ball back in. So I'm not highlighting the worst thing you can do is highlight it like everyone stop right this group I'm making it easy for you, you know, because you're then highlighting it. It's just trying to be subtle in the way you introduce new challenges. But I generally never make reference to the fact that, oh, I'm making it easier or I'm making it harder. I just kind of, like I said, I'm going to introduce you, introduce a new challenge here. So that's how I probably do it. And I suppose another thing for coaches and teachers, you're not gonna get it right. There's been thousands and thousands of times I've tried to make an intervention and it's gone wrong or it hasn't worked. I haven't quite understood the problem. There've been times when I've just got my communication wrong and I've kind of, I have highlighted the fact that I'm, oh, you're not doing too well here, you know. So it's, it goes back to the experiences you're developing all the time. And just the key for us is to go away and reflect and think, OK, could I have done that a little bit differently? So that's, yeah, that's what I probably want to highlight as well for coaches.
[00:39:22,700] [Louise:] Yeah. Great tips there. So as a bit of a flip side to us asking you a question on the community, just wondering, do you have any questions that you'd like to ask our coaching community? Maybe it's something that you want to kind of pose a question to them and see if get them thinking a little bit or it could be something that you would like to know that you'd like to share with them.
[00:39:44,140] [James Richard:] What I'd like them to do if they can put this on the community, that'd be great. What games did they play as a child and how could they bring that to life in their next session? That's what I'd like. And perhaps even some feedback afterwards would be good as well. How did it go? That would be good to know, because, like I said, there's games I've probably long forgotten. It'd be nice to see what people used to do as a kid and then the impact of it. Have a go at it, see what happens.
[00:40:10,460] [Louise:] Yeah, I think it's really good to share those things as well, isn't it? And kind of gets us thinking as well, Which is great.
[00:40:15,720] [Jamie:] Yeah, it'd be good. It would be good to share that and see. Yeah, it's quite nice to hear some of the games that you mentioned, something that I played myself, like for instance, just having that shared experience is quite nice to reflect it and think back on all the happy memories that we've had growing up. So yeah, it'll be really interesting to put that to the community. So listeners, if you're listening to this now, make sure you head over there, have a look for it and share your experience with us. What games did you like to play? And then, yeah, if you do do it in a PE session or in a coaching session, yeah, please let us know how that went on and how the kids responded to that activity. Right. Well, we are coming up to the end of the show and our regular listeners will know that means it's time for a swift session.
[00:40:52,120] [Louise:] Yeah, I don't know if you remember from last time James, we give you 30 seconds to explain a session idea to us. Do you remember that?
[00:41:02,000] [James Richard:] I do remember that.
[00:41:02,520] [Louise:] From last time? [James Richard:] Yes, I do. [Louise:] Are you willing to give it a go again?
[00:41:05,860] [James Richard:] Yep.
[00:41:06,260] [Jamie:] Loved it that much the first time round. You definitely want to go and do it again. Yeah.
[00:41:10,840] [Louise:] Right. So as before, we've got a timer and then if you're ready, time starts now. [James Richard:] Okay. So you have, you set up a diamond, usually 10 yards by 10 yards. And you can have children, one side of the diamond is an attacker, the other side is a defender. And what they do is they enter the diamond and their aim is to go to either the side cones of the diamond which are worth one point or the back cone which is worth three. The defenders aim is to try and tag them to stop them and then you can introduce a ball so that they can try and take on a dribble and then you can build it up to two v twos where they can now send and receive.
[00:41:48,980] [Jamie:] Well in time.
[00:41:50,240] [Louise:] You can tell he's done it before.
[00:41:53,200] [Jamie:] He's used that experience.
[00:41:56,240] [James Richard:] I hope they understand it.
[00:41:59,080] [Jamie:] Was there anything else you wanted to add on to that?
[00:42:01,340] [James Richard:] No, that's fine.
[00:42:02,640] [Jamie:] Brilliant. Well, thank you very much for your time today James, it was great to have you back on. Hopefully you've enjoyed the second round of experience being here and we've really enjoyed hearing about your journey and getting some insight on developing skillful players today, So thank you very much. [James Richard:] No, thank you for having me back.
[00:42:18,240] [Louise:] I enjoyed that chat with James. Did you, Jamie? [Jamie:] Yeah, it was really good. Nice to have him back in the studio again and a really good discussion overall. [Louise:] Yeah, and I think there's some really good takeaways from what he said. I guess my main one, or one of the ones that he said earlier on I quite liked was that he said, don't try too hard to control everything. And it kind of like fed into a little bit as he continued, which was like standing back and just watching and allowing kids to kind of be kids and just see how they take things and what they do.
[00:42:47,420] [Jamie:] Yeah I like that, that was a really good point. The one that I would probably pick out that was different to that because that was something that stuck in my mind as well, was the importance of informal play and the enjoyment that that can bring and ultimately we want, whether it's through PE or coaching sessions, we just want it to be fun for our players and after all it is their game, they want to enjoy it. So yeah just pointing out the importance of making it fun and informal games, informal play can certainly do that.
[00:43:00,060] [Jamie:] Right, that's all we have time for today, but don't forget to check out the episode description to all the links to our platforms. There you will be able to click through to the English Football Community. This is where you can post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast or just simply to connect with loads of wonderful coaches.