The PE Playbook – January 2017 Edition

Welcome to the January 2017 Edition of the PE Playbook. The PE Playbook is a review of blog posts over the past month that are specific to Physical Education or Youth Sport. Its about bringing these blog posts into a format that is easy to find, use and share. Hopefully this will result in more PE Teachers (and others) reading them and engaging with them. If you have any feedback about the presentation or content of the PE Playbook then please let me know in the comments section of this post or via @ImSporticus. Previous Editions of the PE Playbook can be found here.

This month the blogger of the month goes to the collective that is Changing The Game Project. A group of US based coaches whose mission to return youth sports to the children, and put the ‘play’ back in ‘play ball.’ I had the pleasure to see John O’Sullivan, the founder of @CTGProjectHQ talk about going beyond the X’s and O’s of coaching youth sport and his message has stayed with me. Why Kids Play Sports encourages us youth sports coaches to focus on the things what will not change, the reasons why children enjoy sports. Alecko Eskandarian in The Unspoken Problem in Sports writes a deeply personal account of the issues he faced from concussion, encouraging us to put the wellbeing of our players first and foremost in our minds. One thing that can have a negative impact on children’s willingness to continue in youth sport are the conversations that adults initiate with them. An Open Letter from the Back Seat is a post that explores these conversations from the view of the child and is a handy reminder that sometimes we need to see things from their perspective. It is their game after all. An older post but one I highly recommend youth sports read is Why Kids Quit Sports which looks at the many reasons why children drop out of organised sport and offers some practical solutions to over come them. If we want as many involved, for as long as possible, in the best possible environment then there are some ideas we can take away and implement into our own coaching.

Constraints & Player Development in Football – an indepth review of the constraints led approach and how it can be applied to football via Mark Upton
“Junior success is a poor indicator of long-term senior success” are the research findings of Dr. Arne Güllich on investigating the efficacy of a number of early TID programmes.
A response to “screen based lifestyle harms children’s health” is a balanced and evidenced response to the media hyperbole that screen time for children is the root of all evil.
Know What, Learn How, Understand Why from the Gaelic Athletic Association is their model for effective coaching.
How to develop resilient athletes by Stuart Armstrong is a video on mental toughness and how it is applied at the elite level through consequence based coaching.
Opposed vs Unopposed Technical Development and the Death of Nuance by Paul Cammarata of the The Coaching Journey asks us not to live at the end of the spectrum when debating different approaches but to bring more nuance and understanding into our justification.
Just do the ‘right thing’… but what is the ‘right thing’?? is a deeply reflective piece of writing by Krissi Paterson who questions the purpose of her decision making and judgement as a coach.
Life skills and… from Mel Hamada recounts a recent personal experience which leads to the questioning of what content we should be providing in our PE Curriculum.
The Race to the Bottom (adventures in early and earlier talent ID) is another excellent post from Mark O’ Sullivan who questions the message adults send to children who are involved in youth sport trust and asks perhaps is their a better one we all could get on board with.
Considering game-based teaching/coaching as a cluster of teaching styles by Shane Pill challenges those who use a game based approach to teaching sport within PE whether the central pedagogy used (inquiry orientated) is not as relevant as the impact of the pedagogical actions on learning.
Why PE teachers are the gatekeepers of the future health and well-being of students by Laura Davies asks if PE is a subject for life rather than qualification should we be more concerned about engagement rather than grading outcomes?