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Stages of development by age

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

ELEMENT 1 WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO ACHIEVE?

Our Player Development Curriculum provides an opportunity to create a relevant, coherent and engaging environment for all players, parents and coaches. Having clear purposes representing the program’s hopes and desires for the players is an important starting point. Purposes not only provide a reference point for decision-making but also a direction on how learning experiences are to be organized.

Under our coaching curriculum, we aim to:

  • Establish an entitlement – for every child entering the program irrespective of social background, wealth, gender, or differences in ability.
  • Establish standards – at each stage of development so progress of players and coaches can be monitored, goals and improvement targets can be established, and players can be selected for the appropriate development groups.
  • Promote continuity and coherence – facilitates the transition of players between teams and phases of skill development and provides a framework for coaches to adhere to.
  • Promote understanding for parents and players – increases understanding and confidence in the player development philosophy and coaching team.
  • Provide attainment standards for measuring coach and player performance
  • Reflect best practice
  • Promote intellectual, social, personal, and physical development.
  • Establish high expectations for all constituents
  • Identifies outcomes relating to skills, knowledge, and other performance criteria.
  • Provide equal opportunity for all players to learn and achieve.

STAGE 1 (Introduction)

Learn fundamental movement skills
  • Significant emphasis on fundamental movement skills – running, jumping, skipping and throwing.
  • Sessions that are simple, fun, have variety and use large muscle.
  • Activities that do not place undue stress on the muscles, bones and energy systems of the body.
  • Repeating activities regularly – constant change and insufficient reinforcement negatively affects learning
  • Including activities that take a short time to complete (5-10 minutes), due to short attention span.
  • Using equipment and props to increase complexity but continue to make the sessions fun – hurdles, hoops, ladders, bean bags, etc.
  • Continually reinforce effort and constantly praise players.

STAGE 2 (INITIATION)

arn fundamental soccer skills
  • Focus on ball familiarization and dribbling skills – one ball per child
  • Some basic tactical application of attacking and defending concepts introduced
  • Aerobic power should be introduced progressively after growth rate decelerates. Promote unstructured play.
  • The main activities are developing ball control while learning how to solve problems
  • individually and with their teammates. Players learn several new activities that create a foundation for their training environment as they progress over the years.
  • Different variations of passing & dribbling can build into higher level variations that help to develop technical abilities & combinational play.

STAGE 3 (TRANSITION)

Build the aerobic base and build strength toward the end of the phase and further develop soccer-specific skills. Optimize fitness preparation and sport, individual and position specific skills as well as performance. Maximize fitness preparation and sport, individual and position specific skills as well as performance.
  • Better able to deal with flighted balls.
  • Can sequence thoughts and actions to perform more complex tasks.
  • Can use abstract thought to meet the demands of the game.
  • Should be able to simultaneously run, strike the ball and thinK.
  • Fertile period to learn – full of eagerness.
  • Important psychosocial implications for a child entering pubert.
  • Popularity influences self-esteem.
  • Improved coordination.
  • Significant physical differences exist between the genders now.
  • Strength and power becoming factors in their performanc.

STAGE 4 (SPECIALIZATION)

Build the aerobic base and build strength toward the end of the phase and further develop soccer-specific skills. Optimize fitness preparation and sport, individual and position-specific skills as well as performance. Maximize fitness preparation and sport, individual and position-specific skills as well as performance.
  • Players should receive more in-depth tactical instructions, particularly in understanding playing positions. Players should continue to experience different positions on the field.
  • Team tactics should form a significant part of practice sessions and teams should be coached in team ‘units’ – defense, midfield and attack.
  • Position training is important, and players should be prepared for a primary position.
  • Physical conditioning is also important for all players and training should be tailored to the physical demands of their position on the field.
  • Aerobic power should be introduced progressively after growth rate decelerates.