Hi Coach Art,
I'm an Elementary school teacher from England and I'm currently planning to introduce flag football for 9-11 year olds from September. Can you offer any words of wisdom? I'm going to begin with 5 a side, to give all the kids playing time. I'll only get 2hrs per week with each class. There are 32 children in each class and I'll have no coaches assisting. All suggestions will be HIGHLY valued.
I'm an Elementary school teacher from England and I'm currently planning to introduce flag football for 9-11 year olds from September. Can you offer any words of wisdom? I'm going to begin with 5 a side, to give all the kids playing time. I'll only get 2hrs per week with each class. There are 32 children in each class and I'll have no coaches assisting. All suggestions will be HIGHLY valued.
A Herculean feat, no doubt. You have several significant challenges to overcome:
First, your player-to-coach ratio is 32:1. That means you’ll be (barely) managing chaos. To address that, you’ll need to get help from leaders within the ranks. With 32 kids in each class, you could comfortably create four teams of 8 players. Everyone gets to play, some play both offense and defense, and you have 2 instant games a week. An easy way to make it fair is to empower 4 team captains (usually kids who can throw) and let them do a schoolyard pick for teams. On days when some kids are sick, you should still be able to field four teams with as few as 20 kids, so there is little risk of you not having four teams. If you pick new teams every week, you can insure similar team sizes regardless of attendance.
The reason for using 4 teams is that you can have kids work in smaller groups. Smaller groups means more reps for each kid, which keeps them engaged during practice and having fun. To keep it manageable for you, I suggest each group do identical drills at the same time. You can bounce from group to group with positive reinforcement.
Your job is not "coach" as much as "commissioner." You're not teaching techniques, subtleties, or nuances. With only 2 hours a week, everything is meat and potatoes football - basics all the way with a heavy emphasis on fun, sportsmanship, and more fun.
For your first class session, do an Intro to Football primer. The learning objectives could be:
- Present overview of flag football gameplay (field size, flag pulling, how to score, difference between offense and defense)
- Define rules and key terms (line of scrimmage, forward pass, blitz/rush, blocking)
- Identify positions, roles and responsibilities on offense and defense
- Practice offensive and defensive alignment
- Introduce and practice one offensive route (Slant)
- Scrimmage for fun
Remember, there's a lot of potential jargon in football, but use as little as possible. Don't be hesitant to assign reading homework, like 5 vocabulary words with definitions. This can help students become familiar with important terms like "Down and Distance" or "Turnover." Regular written quizzes (matching or multiple choice) on the reading homework is a good way to reinforce key concepts and assess student learning. But beyond that, I wouldn't get hung up on installing an offense, learning plays in a playbook, or anything technical. Participation should be the largest part of a student's grade. If they show up and try hard with a great attitude, that's a win!
Week to week, make the routine the same. Stretching, brief review of last week's work, new topic(s) for today, pick teams for today, team drills to practice topic(s), then lots of scrimmage. Above all, make sure it's fun!
What advice would you give? Share your suggestions in the comments box or via Twitter @MyCoachArt, or on Facebook on the "Winning Flag Football" page.
First, your player-to-coach ratio is 32:1. That means you’ll be (barely) managing chaos. To address that, you’ll need to get help from leaders within the ranks. With 32 kids in each class, you could comfortably create four teams of 8 players. Everyone gets to play, some play both offense and defense, and you have 2 instant games a week. An easy way to make it fair is to empower 4 team captains (usually kids who can throw) and let them do a schoolyard pick for teams. On days when some kids are sick, you should still be able to field four teams with as few as 20 kids, so there is little risk of you not having four teams. If you pick new teams every week, you can insure similar team sizes regardless of attendance.
The reason for using 4 teams is that you can have kids work in smaller groups. Smaller groups means more reps for each kid, which keeps them engaged during practice and having fun. To keep it manageable for you, I suggest each group do identical drills at the same time. You can bounce from group to group with positive reinforcement.
Your job is not "coach" as much as "commissioner." You're not teaching techniques, subtleties, or nuances. With only 2 hours a week, everything is meat and potatoes football - basics all the way with a heavy emphasis on fun, sportsmanship, and more fun.
For your first class session, do an Intro to Football primer. The learning objectives could be:
- Present overview of flag football gameplay (field size, flag pulling, how to score, difference between offense and defense)
- Define rules and key terms (line of scrimmage, forward pass, blitz/rush, blocking)
- Identify positions, roles and responsibilities on offense and defense
- Practice offensive and defensive alignment
- Introduce and practice one offensive route (Slant)
- Scrimmage for fun
Remember, there's a lot of potential jargon in football, but use as little as possible. Don't be hesitant to assign reading homework, like 5 vocabulary words with definitions. This can help students become familiar with important terms like "Down and Distance" or "Turnover." Regular written quizzes (matching or multiple choice) on the reading homework is a good way to reinforce key concepts and assess student learning. But beyond that, I wouldn't get hung up on installing an offense, learning plays in a playbook, or anything technical. Participation should be the largest part of a student's grade. If they show up and try hard with a great attitude, that's a win!
Week to week, make the routine the same. Stretching, brief review of last week's work, new topic(s) for today, pick teams for today, team drills to practice topic(s), then lots of scrimmage. Above all, make sure it's fun!
What advice would you give? Share your suggestions in the comments box or via Twitter @MyCoachArt, or on Facebook on the "Winning Flag Football" page.
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