17th session

I arrived 10 minutes before the session, i set out the start drill to the same pass and run exercise, to my surprise only 2 girls turned up 15 minutes into the session this was not enough to do the pass and run drill. Luckily for me there were about 4 boys near by wanting to play with the basket ball hoops, so i kindly asked them if they would like to join in the session, they said yes they would which was great. So we started doing the pass and running drill.
From then on we moved into a little game as i no the children did not have much time left for them to go to their dinners, so 10 minutes into the game they had to leave for their dinner. When playing against the boys the girls found it rather hard as they were alot faster and stronger. But unlike the girls the boys struggled on footwork, keeping their feet still and also bouncing the ball alot, which i think that's just from the fact they do alot of basketball which the rules are rather different from netball in footwork and bouncing the ball. I had to leave the session early again 15 minutes before the end as the girls did not turn up after their dinner.

Footwork

One of the trickiest rules to remember in netball is getting your footwork right. If a player catches the ball with only one foot on the ground then that foot is called the landing foot. A player can then choose to step with the other foot, lift the landing foot and throw the ball before the landing foot returns to the ground. Or they can pivot on the landing foot and move the other foot any number of times - depending on how flexible the player is!

But they are NOT allowed to move or hop on the landing foot until they have thrown the ball. A player can also jump, switching from the landing foot to their other one, and then jump again to throw the ball. If a player has both feet on the floor when catching the ball they will choose their landing foot and follow the rules as above. If a player breaks the footwork rule it is usually called stepping and a free pass is awarded.

Netball: landing

When you land on two feet in netball you can then choose which foot will be your landing foot.

So the two-footed landing gives you more options for your next move.

STEP ONE

As you jump or run to catch the ball keep your eye firmly fixed on it.

Catch it with your thumbs pointed upwards and towards the eyes. Bring your arms back into your body so you take the force out of the pass.

You can improve this move by turning in the air before you land to keep defenders guessing.

STEP TWO

To regain your balance you have to absorb the energy from your jump.

Bend your knees and flex your ankles as both feet hit the floor. Try to land on the balls of your feet, not your heels.

Bring the ball into your body to protect it from watchful defenders.

STEP THREE

The beauty of a two-footed landing is that you can decide which foot is your landing foot.

So if you're surrounded by defenders on one side you opt to pivot or step the opposite way.

But once you lift one foot then you have made your decision. You must then pivot, jump or simply step and make your pass.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/netball/rules/newsid_2706000/2706979.stm

14th session

Arrived 15 minutes before beginning of the session, which gives me plenty of time to set up. On a Friday i usually get alot more girls than a Monday as all years 4, 5 and 6 are allowed. This session only 6 of the girls showed up all were the year 5's, so i just planned out to repeat the session performed on Monday as it is a good all rounder exercise. It helps develop footwork when landing, it also helps the children to catch and pass, and it also allows them to try and read passes from the feeder to be able to be on top of the ball and catch it with no problems.
Towards the end into 15 minutes of the game the girls got called away for their dinner, they mentioned that they wouldn't be back in time for more netball at the end of the session, so i packed everything up and finished 15 minutes before the session was supposed to finish.

Skills

Gross skills: involve large muscle movements, where the major muscle groups are involved. The movements are not very precise, and include many fundamental movement patterns such as walking, running and jumping. The shot putt is an example of a primarily gross skill.

Fine skills: involve intricate movements using small muscle groups, tend to be precise and generally involve high levels of hand-eye coordination. A snooker shot or playing the piano are examples fine skills.

Open skills: sports such as Netball, Football, and Hockey usually involve open skills. This is because the environment is constantly changing and so movements have to be continually adapted. Therefore, skills are predominantly perceptual. The skill is mostly externally paced, for example a pass in football.
Externally paced skills: the environment, which may include opponents, controls the rate of performing the skill. The performer must pay attention to external events in order to control his/her rate of movement. These skills involve reaction, and are usually open skills. i.e. in ball games the performer must time his actions with the actions of other players and the ball.

This continuum is concerned with how well defined the beginning and end of the skill are - discrete, serial and continuous skills.

Discrete skills are brief, well-defined actions that have a clear beginning and end. They are single, specific skills, which make up the actions involved in a variety of sports such as hitting and throwing. Hockey. i.e. a penalty flick in.

Serial Skills are a group of discrete skills strung together to make a new and complex movement. i.e. the sequence of skills for the triple jump.

Continuous skills have no obvious beginning or end. The end of one cycle of movements is the beginning of the next, and the skill is repeated like a cycle. These skills could be stopped at any moment during the performance of the skill. i.e. Swimming, Running, Cycling.

Interactive skills are those performed where other performers are directly involved. e.g. rugby, football, basketball, netball.

A simple skill is one that is straightforward with very few subsections to go through to perform the skill. This skill also requires little concentration and cognitive ability of the performer.

A complex skill involves a large attention span because they are complicated and are practiced in training repeatedly to make it easier to perform in competition.

A low organisation skill is very easy and uncomplicated moves like riding a bike and the phases that make the skill are usually discrete and might be practiced separately to make your technique better. Not as much attention needed.

A high organisation skill have a complex amount of skill involved and you can say that it is many skills closely linked together to make this skill. They cannot be broken down and practiced separately as they are linked closely together. These require large amounts of attention.

A major factor influencing the development of a skill is practice of which there are two main types:

• Variable - practicing a skill in a variety of different contexts and experiencing the full range of situations in which the technique or tactic might be used in competition. The learner applies the skill to a number of different environments in practice, allowing both the development of the skill and the ability to adapt the skill to a range of possible situations. This is vital for open and interactive skills
• Fixed - a specific movement is practiced repeatedly, often referred to as a drill. This type of practice is ideal for skills that are always performed in the same way, that do not require adapting to the environment. Closed, interactive and coactive skills tend to require fixed practice to allow the motor sequence to be perfected, since they will remain the same in practice as they will in competition

The organisation of a practice session will depend greatly on those involved and the activity being practiced. Depending on the amount of experience, the skill level and the performer's fitness, practice may be organised in two ways:

• Massed - the skill is practiced until learnt without taking a break. These sessions are good for athletes with high level of fitness and experience and are most suited to fixed practice
• Distributed - practice is interspersed with breaks that can either be rest or another skill. These sessions are good for athletes with lower levels of fitness and experience and are most suited to variable practice

(Brian mac)

www.brianmac.co.uk

www.netballwellington.co.nz/sport%20netball%2

15th & 16th session

Not on as easter weekend, and schools off school all week.

13th Session

I arrived 20 minutes before i start the session, managed to get all the cones set out and the balls ready. The girls arrived and there were only 4 of them that turned up. We got straight onto a quick little warm up making sure all the muscles were stretched. I then moved onto a pass catch and run exercise. There were 2 cones placed about 5 meters from each other, another 2 girls arrived so we had 6 all together now. Dividing them up into 3's they each had to stand behind the 2 set cones (they were the workers). There was another cone placed opposite the middle of them 2 cones which ( i) the feeder stood to feed the ball. The workers 1 by 1 they threw me the ball they ran into the middle and then once received the ball they passed it to the next person standing at the other cone, the runner then joins the opposite queue and so forth. Once this exercise got sorted the feeder made it harder for the workers by adding different passes, such as high passes, bounce passes etc. To make everyone aware of being able to confidently pass the ball, everyone was given a chance at being the feeder. (this particular drill took half an hour of the session). Game exercise was then taken place, where 4 girls had to run off to their dinner, so we were left with 2 girls. This meant i had to just do a little game with them 2 girls against myself. But to make it easier for them as soon as i got a tip of the ball or catch, they had to take it back to the start and so on. 15 minutes into the game the other 4 girls returned, so we did a 3 vs 3 game for the rest of the session. I just watched the girls play and assessed where they were going wrong etc. Making them aware of what they were doing right and wrong. 2 minutes at the end of the session just did a little cool down with some light jogging.

Ball control

When a player receives a pass they have to act quickly, but they are not allowed to run with the ball or dribble it. A player has to be standing before they throw the ball - it is illegal to chuck the ball when you're kneeling down or sprawled on the floor of the court.
To make sure the game stays pacy and competitive there's the three second rule. This means players have only three seconds between catching the ball and making a pass. (BBC sport, Netball)

http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=74319264&epmid=2&partner=Google

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/netball/4296972.stm

12th session

I arrived 15 minutes before the session and set out a few cones for the session. The girls arrived all 5 of them and we performed a little warm up consisting of running, changing direction, jump up and down etc. We then went onto some static stretching getting the muscles warm. from then i asked all the girls to grab a ball each and queue behind the cone that was placed on the court. The drill consisted of the girls, one by one they throw the ball to the feeder (me), then were to sprint into the circle to catch the ball and take a shot, after taking the 1 shot they were to go to the back of the queue. This was repeated until about 15 - 10 minutes. The next drill was working on centre passes, there were 4 girls so it made it easy to do, i was playing the position centre and the 2 girls without the bibs were playing the attackers while the other 2 girls with the bibs were playing the defenders. The 2 girls without the bibs the attackers had to try and dodge past the defenders to recieve the ball from me. The other 2 girls with the bibs the defenders had to try and stop them from getting free for the ball and defend as much as they could to prevent them from getting out to revcieve the pass. We did this for a repeat of 5 - 10 minutes then changed positions for everyone to get a chance at playing both roles the defender and the attacker. this was agin repeated for the same time 5 - 10 minutes. 2 of the girls had to go for dinner so there were only 2 remaining. We did a little game where the both were the attackers and i was the defender, this would make it harder for the 2 girls to get free and pass but it is good practice for them on pressuring them. They seemed to enjoy the little game with me against them, i think it was a good experience to show them what they will have to play against if they want to go ahead and play for club level. There were 20 minutes left another 2 girlscame back from their dinner so i let them play a litlle 2 vs 2 game until the time had ran out.

Centre passes


If the attackers or defenders go across the line before the start whistle is blowin the player who goes offside will be given a free pass against them, they have to make sure that they do not run out for a centre pass until the whistle has blown.

"On a centre pass if a player enter the central third before the whistle is blown a free pass will be awarded. "(Essex netball.co.uk)

Dodging

"You need to use very quick footwork to trick your opponent into moving one way.

Feint to go one way by moving your feet and body.

Once you have your opponent off balance, you can set off in the other direction and into space." (Chioma Ezeogu, BBC sport academy.co.uk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/netball/masterclasses/newsid_2821000/2821987.stm

www.shenfield.essex.sch.uk

11th session

Cancelled for really bad weather!!

10th Session

I did not attend this session as i had to prepare for a university presentation i had the next day.

9th Session

I arrived 15 minutes before the session, i set it up with cones in the correct place. 5 minutes into the session this time 2 girls arrived so we started doing a warm up, where i made them using the red and blue lines only run around on the lines after doing about 3 minutes of running i gathered them together and did some static stretching, stretching again all the muscles. The first drill i had set out was 6 cones placed diagonally, one by one with a ball they had to pass to me then run touch the first cone, then run and touch the second cone etc. all the way to the last (6th) cone, but as they are running and touching the cones they must always keep their eyes on the ball as I'm going to pass the ball back to them during when they are running when they least expect it, then they pass back, but i might repeat passing the ball to them more than once so i know they are focusing and keeping an eye on the ball. Half way through this drill another 2 girls came and joined in the drill.
The next drill i had set up was an attacking drill where again they had a ball each with starting cones on the first third line, they were to pass me the ball and sprint towards the shooting circle, i will pass the ball to them and they have to try and catch the ball and stop before falling into the circle. The pass will be put ahead of the player so it makes it harder for them to catch the ball which increases them to stretch ahead. Different passes was made to keep them aware of what was happening and where the ball was going.
Once finished that drill i moved onto a shooting drill it's very competitive and is called killer.

Killer is where the 2 players at the front of the semi circle have the ball to start, the 1st person will shoot first if they miss the shot they have to quickly run towards the direction of the ball and catch the ball and try to get as close to the post as they can and keep shooting until they score, meanwhile the 2nd person with the ball has to shoot straight away as soon as the 1st person has shoot this is because as soon as the 2nd person shoots and if they score or if they miss but manage to get the ball and score before the 1st person does the 1st person is out. Then the ball goes to the other people in the Que at the top of semi circle, and they do the same until there is only 2 left then that's the final. If however the person who goes 1st scores before the 2nd person the 2nd person is still in as they went 2nd, so the 1st person when they score passes the ball into the front of the Que and that person will have to try and shoot out the other person still shooting.

After that i put everything they had learned in the drills and put them into a game 2 vs 2, again getting them to use some defending, dodging, passing and shooting. 5 were minutes left, so i did a quick cool down some light jogging and some stretching.

Competition Activities

"What all sports competitions have in common is that all of the competitors want to win. But usually only one person or team does." (kids health.org) "Competition can make sports more exciting. But because somebody wins and somebody loses, competition also can make kids feel pressure. A little pressure can be OK. Too much pressure is bad news." (kids health.org)

The whole part of the competition fun activities is so that the children can have plenty of opportunities for having fun with their friends and most importantly learning new skills.


"Above all, kids should learn to treat everyone with courtesy and respect whether they win or lose. Ideally, while engaged in competition, a child will learn that winning isn't important; what is important is putting forth the best effort possible. Then, as the child grows older and realizes that sustained effort leads to improved performance, she'll learn to compete against the worthiest opponent of all—herself." (Villaire, T)



www.pta.org(Ted Villaire - Competition and Kids: It's Not About Winning)

http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/fit/pressure.html

www.crewe-nantwich.gov.uk