Cast your mind back to when you were younger – I will pause here
as this may take some of you longer than others – ready? OK! Think about
when you were at school, and I imagine that you would have taken a greater interest
in the subjects that were taught in a fun and exciting way. The principles and
fundamentals of learning were still in place, just cleverly disguised in a fun
and active environment that allowed you to simply enjoy the experience, rather
than to over-analyse what you were learning, and the learning process.
The child’s perspective
When you bring your child along to Little Kickers classes you will
notice that, first and foremost, your child is having a great time and
thoroughly enjoying playing active games with other children which stretch his
/ her imagination. This is the child’s perspective of Little
Kickers.
The parent / teacher’s perspective
As a parent, you will most likely have noticed that, in addition
to having a great time, your child is also developing invaluable social skills
like listening, sharing, taking turns and teamwork. These skills are
consciously woven into our programmes, together with other early learning
concepts such as colour and number recognition and the development of physical
skills such as balance, agility and co-ordination.
The
coaches’ perspective
So far so good, but one of the other key skills your coach is
encouraging your child to develop (often unbeknownst to your child, who just
thinks he / she is having a great time rescuing treasure from pirates / trying
not to wake the sleeping bear etc!), is a basic grasp of the fundamentals of
football. When you hear the coach tell the Little Kickers that they are going
to do ‘big lion kicks”; – what the children are actually learning is timing,
weight of pass and a variable kicking action. Similarly, they may be asked to
do small, quiet kicks so that they do not wake the sleeping coach - in reality
they are learning close control, dribbling, awareness, space evasion and invasion.
Our coaches disguise these skills deliberately, so that the children can just
concentrate on enjoying the activity.
The skills hidden in a simple game
To the untrained eye a simple game, such as ‘Football Tennis’ above, may
look like organised chaos. Travel deeper into the underlying reasons as to why
that game was created, and you will find that this simple game promotes the
development of an array of different skills. If you are not familiar with this
simple game, the children are told that they are Pirates, and with their cannon
balls (the footballs) they have to try to sink the opposition’s ship. Now, due
to the powerfully imaginative nature of children’s minds, the theme of the game
will be accepted and unquestioned, and what is more, the game gives the
children the opportunity to use their own imaginations to seek and fill missing
elements of the “story”. Meanwhile, the coaches can see the developmental
process in full flow. While the children fire numerous cannonballs, the
children are improving their first touch, weight of pass, multidirectional
play, awareness of space, dribbling, improving their perception of boundaries,
accuracy and teamwork skills. That’s a lot of hidden learning in a simple
game!
The Little Kickers programme has been developed over the past 10
years with input from FA qualified coaches, early childhood and school
teachers, child health specialists and pro-active parents. We understand
that kids learn better when they are having fun, and our programmes reflect
this.
So next time you are sitting watching one of our sessions,
why not see if you can pick out the skills that your child is learning?
If you can’t spot them, and you would like to find out more, do not hesitate to
ask the coach.
