A How to on Coaching Women and Girls Coaching Course Map a Pass It On! 3

The official coaching magazine of England Handball ISSN 2053-8677

£ Issue 7 March2015 £

THIS GIRL ANDY AND DASH HAVE INVADED

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A HOW TO ON COACHING WOMEN AND GIRLS COACHING COURSE MAP A PASS IT ON! 3

AAA LEVEL 1 WelcomeD COACHING COURSES NEAR YOU...... to the seventh issue of Pass it on! A major focus this time round is Click on the map on women and girls to ﬁnd out more participation, through great coaching. The recent launch of the nationwide This Girl Can campaign by Sport England has really brought female involvement in sport to the forefront of public awareness. We all know that handball is a great sport for women and girls for a variety of reasons, including ﬁtness and team- based social engagement, and we want to help coaches support those activities. It has been great to see many of our ladies teams getting behind this campaign and showcasing the opportunities that exist to attract new female players in to handball. This issue will provide some advice, guidance and ideas on how you can run enjoyable and targeted sessions for women and girls and prove AAA that This Girl Can play handball! UKCC Enjoy the issue! LEVEL 2 David Meli (CEO) and COURSES Mike Briers (Chairman) Click here

• 70% of all coaches are aged 34 or younger Survey Results • 86% of all coaches have delivered handball within the last 12 At the end of 2014, we surveyed all of months, with the majority delivering more than once a week (44%) our coaches nationwide to help us • If the opportunities existed, 79% of coaches would deliver more shape our support for coaches in 2015. than they currently do Below are some of the key findings, • 58% of handball coaches have a UKCC coaching qualification in with a full report out on Monday 30th another sport Questions? March 2015 and available from • 29% of coaches are female. Email National Coaching www.englandhandball.com and Workforce Development Officer [email protected] ???

facebook.com/EnglandHandball @EHA_PassItOn instagram.com #handball 91134 Edited, designed and produced by Coachwise Ltd. Published March 2015 Editor: Anna Gutridge Email: [email protected] Tel: 0113-201 5533 Photography © England Handball, 2014 unless otherwise stated 4 PASS IT ON!

D YES SHE CAN! port England’s Active be sporty, don’t get invited to clubs People Survey found that like this. Once they come to the clubs D: Are any of the women 1.75 million fewer women we give them a Phoenix t-shirt so that and girls coaches ? than men are active, they feel they belong to something. despiteS over 70 per cent of 14-40 Essentially it’s about being pro-active. JP: Liz Roberts leads on junior year-old women wanting to be development at Poole Phoenix. We more active. D: What makes women also have a couple of female coaches and girls come back who do development work in primary This is an area that Sport England is schools. This is through our to the club? addressing with its This Girl Can partnership with the England campaign. The campaign is tackling, Handball Association University head on the fears and reservations JP: We are looking at starting a Activators program at Bournemouth women and girls have about taking Sportivate session aimed solely at University. part in sport or physical exercise. expanding the women’s section of the club - with a rolling rewards scheme. Handball is engaging with the D: What training/ We’ve found that once girls played a campaign and our very own Dash few games suddenly they really got support can coaches caught up with John Pearce of Poole into it and started filtering from our access? Phoenix to ask what they are doing as after-school programs into the main a club and as coaches to increase club evening sessions. JP: The general practice of Poole female participation. Phoenix is to make sessions relaxed and done with good humour and a Dash: How do you D: What impact has all focus on involvement as opposed to attract women and this had? performance. girls to the club? JP: All girls in the Dorset under-16 This helps increase participation squad came through our schools numbers for females and males – and We have a separate John Pearce: programme and evening club. Our to filter those who take to the game women’s team and also run girls-only girl’s school programmes have been into satellite clubs and main-club sessions during lunch times and after more successful than the boys with sessions. We are open to receiving school. These have proved hugely double the numbers turning up. At support around specific coaching of popular. We’ve gone into PE lessons one session there were 28 girls, it was women and girls. and invited girls to join us. This is a great problem to have. important as most girls, especially those who don’t deem themselves to PASS IT ON! 5

D: How can I get more women and girls to come to my club? LIVERPOOL JP: Be pro-active. Get out there and go and get them and make them feel valued and part of the team. Also, LADIES look to get friendship groups to come along. Often if one-or-two go, others will too. Free stuﬀ seems to help a lot HANDBALL as well, I mean who doesn't like free stuﬀ! CLUB

Things to think What has the club done to about... attract women and girls? Women and girls are biologically, We have a colourful, popular and up to psychologically and social unique and date website here. We also utilise social a coaches’ responsibility is to meet the media inc Facebook and Twitter. We needs and wants which are present as also utilise our own network to a result. Fundamentally, when encourage other women/girls to come coaching women and girls, both and join training. participant and coach would beneﬁt Any other initiatives at the from amending coaching practice, club re women and girls? consider the following points: We have a team in the regional A female stress response is to ‘tend • development league so skills and and befriend’ with a mental enjoyment learned from training can be preference to empathise over put into practice in matches. systemise (sports coach UK). What’s the proposal of • The Female Athlete Triad is a cycle of low energy availability, disrupted women and girls at the club menstrual cycles and low bone and how has this changed mineral density, along a continuum since 2012? with potential to eﬀect all female We currently have a regular 12-15 athletes (sports coach UK). women training on a Thursday night I can! junior girls train on a sat which is a • In the coach athlete relationship, mixed session. The club has bee re “...girls will have a tendency to seek established this season so cant closer relationships with their peers compare the 2012. sooner than boys and these relationships are more likely to What recommendations exhibit a more advanced sense of would you make to other intimacy compared to boys.” clubs re attracting more women and girls to clubs, g and the coaching measures her readin S S S S S S you need in place? Furt We would recommend reaching out to Sports Coach UK. (2013). Female women who have played before and Physiology and Considerations for have experience to encourage college Coaching Practice. Coaching Women. Leeds and other students and show how Visek, A., Harris., B and Blom, L. (2013). much fun playing this sport can be. We Mental Training with Youth Sport Teams: would also recommend that coaching Developmental Considerations and Best- could be funded so we can get more Practice Recommendations. Journal of women coaches. Sport Psychology in Action. Vol 4:1 6 PASS IT ON! PASS IT ON! 7 GOLDEN

England Netball head coach Caroline Roberts about her coachingAnna Mayes journey and the GIRLimportance of having a clear focus on yourtells goals.

ngland Netball head tournament in New Zealand in any means think I’ll get the award. coach Anna Mayes has November 2013 when Mayes fielded But it’s just very humbling to be always had a clear an inexperienced side. shortlisted with such prestigious focus on her goals. coaches.’ AtS the age of 16, she decided that, “ Mayes may be young for a national one day, she wanted to coach the Experimental coach, but she is far from national side. The opportunity learning is inexperienced. The former England came sooner than expected, and junior and Wales senior now, at just 34, she already has fundamental so international (she qualifies through three successful years in the role her Welsh father) developed a under her belt and is looking to her try not to do the passion for coaching while longer-term aim of developing a completing her Level 1 qualification squad that can become world same thing week when she was 16. She went on to champions by 2019. ” deliver at England talent camps and in, week out. at the Welsh Netball Academy. In If her achievements so far are The unprecedented run of success 2008, she hung up her boots and anything to go by, the dream will earned her a nomination for High applied to the England under-21 become a reality. January 2013 saw Performance Coach of the Year in side, where she became co-coach, a 3-0 series whitewash of current the UK Coaching Awards, alongside before being asked to join the world champions Australia – only the likes of UK Athletics lead sprint senior team as an assistant to head the third time England has beaten coach Lloyd Cowan, who coaches coach Sue Hawkins. She was the Diamonds. There soon followed Olympic gold medallist Christine appointed to the top position in a second 3-0 series win against Ohuruogu, and rugby union’s November 2011 after Hawkins Jamaica on their home soil, and Warren Gatland, coach of the Wales returned to her native Australia. another clean sweep against South side. Speaking before the Africa in the autumn, the unbeaten She started with a clear vision of announcement, she says: ‘I don’t by record only faltering in the Fast 5 the squad ethos that she wanted to create. England celebrate beating Jamaica 53-52 in the ‘We needed to bronze medal playoff at the 2006 Commonwealth Games have a bit of a shift in terms of performance culture, and to establish how England wanted and to be described, not only by to utilise the ourselves, but diverse talents of the the opposing teams,’ she explains. To team. this end, she has introduced a series She also favours a holistic approach of ‘trademarks’. ‘One of our that covers everything from nutrition trademarks is being united – ensuring professional to lifestyle management. ‘It’s athletes, and at the that in everything we do, win or lose, something we’ve invested in as a we stand together. same time, they are all either governing body. We’ve really tried to in education or have full- or part-time Another is to be relentless in the have a balanced team behind the jobs. Pamela (Cookey), my captain, offensive power with which we’re squad and make sure we have all the works full-time as a service manager grinding down the opposition. We disciplines covered.’ Balance is at Airbus, and some of the others are need to be relentless in everything we something that matters to her. ‘At the teachers.’ do.’ Others are to be fearless, resilient, end of the day, they’re pretty much PASS IT ON! 9

The undoubted highlight of her tenure That’s been a massive influence on try to learn from different sports. so far has been the series win over me.’ That’s why I’m in a very fortunate Australia. But it was the manner of the position to be on the UK Sport Elite Another is New Zealander Lyn win that was most significant for Coach Programme with some highly Gunsen, her former netball coach at Mayes. ‘The squad showed real successful coaches. It’s very much Bath University. ‘I really enjoyed the composure and resilience, and there about sharing your experience with way she created an environment was a real air of belief in themselves, others, and I feel very honoured to be where athletes take more ownership each other and what they were trying part of that group and get to have and responsibility for their own to do. For me, that was a significant those conversations. It’s a bespoke learning. Not only was she tactically breakthrough. programme, with the first year and technically astute, she was also a focused on making us more self- ‘You need to scrutinise a win, just as great people person. I learnt a lot aware, and thinking about our you would with a loss, and we’re very from her in terms of the athlete- philosophy and understanding of consistent about the way we debrief centred approach and also the holistic leadership. For me, it’s about lifelong every international and every test perspective – how the game is shaped learning. It sounds cheesy, but every series’ she explains. And a winning by multiple disciplines and how you day I’m learning something, whether streak can throw up its own have to work with them. it’s about myself, the athletes or the challenges. ‘There’s a massive situation, and it’s very enlightening to expectation of you as a team, and the be talking with like-minded coaches.’ pressure that comes with it. People get carried away and become fixated She is now seconded full-time to on winning, but there’s a bigger England Netball from her lecturing picture. Obviously, every time we step role at Cardiff Metropolitan University, on court, we aim to win, but there are ??? but she continues to work on her PhD some other objectives. I’m trying to in autoethnography, a form of build the breadth and depth of this research that reflects on personal squad as, at the Commonwealth experience and connects it to the Games and world championships, you AAA wider world. ‘It’s about my coaching really do look to your bench. I think, in narrative,’ she explains. ‘Critical previous years, that’s where England instances that have helped shape my DIDLike Anna, YOU get to understandKNOW your has been left wanting as we haven’t own vision for coaching with Dr future actions. had the real depth to call on. That’s David Piggott’s handy guide. Click It’s probably going to be another five what I’m trying to do, while still here to read more. years before it gets written up. While maintaining that winning it’s making me more self-aware, I momentum.’ ‘The best moments are when you see don’t want it to distract me from the Looking towards the 2019 target, an athlete make a fantastic decision job. But I like to reflect and learn from another challenge is that a number of or deliver a skill at a particular point in my actions and behaviour so I’m athletes are in the latter part of their the game where it’s become either constantly gathering data.’ careers, and some may retire after the habitual or they’ve recognised a cue. I For Mayes, it’s evident that 2015 world championships. ‘I’m trying get enormous satisfaction from seeing development as a coach is a never- to look at the younger athletes we’ve an athlete flourish and take ownership ending journey. So what advice does got coming up. We also need to of the decision making about what we she have for those who are just address how we are getting the best need to change out there on court starting out? ‘For me, experimental athletes playing netball and actually and start running it themselves.’ But learning is absolutely fundamental so keeping them in the sport. We lose to achieve this with a squad takes try not to do the same thing week in, some good athletes to other sports, time, she adds. week out. such as basketball.’ Other role models are coaches who My best years of learning were the Some powerful role models have have had sustained success – she first few years when I was 100% out of helped shape Mayes’ coaching cites Sir Alex Ferguson, Ric my comfort zone, and I enjoyed that philosophy. ‘I’ve been very fortunate Charlesworth, the Australian hockey challenge. Also, take time to get a feel to have strong and determined coach, and the coaches who have for the group, get to know them as women in my life. guiding the British Cycling team to people and have fun with it. You put gold medal after gold medal. My mum has a psychology so much time and effort into it that, at background, and she talks a lot about So can you take things from these the end of the day, you’ve got to make emotional intelligence and how to sports and apply them to netball? it fun.’ build a rapport with athletes. ‘Absolutely. You’d be ignorant not to

This feature was previously published in COACHING EDGE magazine. Edited for publication in Pass it on! by Craig Smith. 10 PASS IT ON!

COACHES’ CORNER Check us out on

We are working with iDrills Apps to enhance coach-development provision for the 10,000-plus certiﬁed Handball coaches, teachers and young leaders nationwide. The partnership will allow coaches to create, plan and share coaching content on a world-leading platform. But how? Single or multiple slides can be created in diﬀerent handball playing areas using a drill builder. In these slides you can include: •equipment •player icons •shapes, lines and text •options to add enriched detail to each practice or drill created.

Each practice can be saved into a practice library where additional features of the app can be used. Every practice can be viewed as it was created, or in a slideshow format if more than one slide is created. Each practice can also be edited and saved in a Session Planner and each session can be saved into the Sessions Library. And then I can share? Yes! Our philosophy of coach development is to create independent thinkers who can take a recipe (a session plan) and use it like a chef (adding, taking away and developing the session to create something new). Practices can be shared via the Transfer Market, a public compendium of practices available to all registered and subscribed users. You can upload and download content to use, amend and plan into your coaching work. Users can share using Facebook and Twitter, providing that they have a registered account with those services. Content can also be shared publicly or privately using CoachMates ®.You can add CoachMates ® from the directory – or invite people from your contacts list on your iPad. As a part of the partnership, England Handball has two unique streams of NGB content. These are divided into Level 1 and Level 2 practices; ideal for pre, during and post course activity for learner coaches! So what are waiting for, download the app to your iPad here. PASS IT ON! 11

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So you’ve got the app, here’s some practices to get started. Redesign, share and take these with you on the go. For more practices like these, why not get involved with our Girls4Gold programme? More information can be found on the back cover – check it out! Four Goal Frenzy Variations 1 Two teams complete in a square area 1 The ﬁrst team to score through each diﬀerent coloured goal wins. marked out by cones, with a goal along 2 The coach can determine the coloured sequence in which teams each side. must score. 2 Teams can attack any goal; to score a 3 Make the playing area smaller/larger. point the ball must be passed through 4 Split the group into more teams. the goals and caught on the other side. 5 If the players struggle, make the practice unopposed with one ball per team. 12 PASS IT ON!

A ‘HOW TO’ FOR COACHING

WOMEN ANDby Liam McCarthy GIRLSCoaching and Workforce Development Manager

fter deliberating about ‘I think a key problem is that we don’t good coach. Put me on the grass and how to best open an have the expertise, is that the right I’m happy, but am I a sport article on coaching word? Yes, expertise or probably the psychologist or a lifestyle consultant women and girls, I knowledge or the experience or the or whatever else? No.’ couldn’t think of a better way than know-how to be able to provide A - Football coach (cited in Gledhill and to use two powerful quotes. everything the girls need. Don’t get me Harwood, 2014; p5) wrong, I’m a coach and I’m a bloody PASS IT ON! 13

‘I just couldn’t hack it with a girls’ Biological considerations could afford autonomy, feelings of team. It was too complex and so Do you typically coach men/boys? competence and a sense of mentally demanding. They needed to Here’s some major differences which relatedness. know why they were doing everything should influence your task design and Social considerations they did so I went back to coaching coach behaviour. boys.’- Football coach (cited in sports • Coach-athlete relationships are coach UK, 2013; p1) • Differences in females when crucial in any coaching context, compared to males are; These are just two of many, and likely and there are some considerations Larger pelvis, 5% - 15% less aerobic when working with women and will resonate with yourself (they capacity Higher body fat certainly did for me in the early stages girls. Women and girls seek an percentage 50% less ability to ‘investment’ type coach, as of my coaching career). We know lots generate power, more pronounced about women and girls in sport; opposed to a ‘functional coach’; an in the upper body, and overall effective coach invests time in the including their physiological, lower total body mass psychological and social make-up - female athlete as opposed to just however where are all the strategies • The Female Athlete Triad is doing their job (Norman and for meeting those wants, needs and something which can affect all French, 2013). preferences? female athletes on a continuum of What can you do to ensure you’re severity. Low energy availability, working with the person, not just the OrganisationalanisgOr anisational Setting/Setting/ disrupted or halted menstrual Politics/Culture/Norms/Valuesolitics/P Culolitics/P Cul /Norms/VeturCul /Norms/V uesal athlete? Strategies could include, cycles and low bone mineral individualised practices, patience and density equate to increased risk of willingness to explain ‘why’, creating WHO injury through muscular-skeletal empowerment, ensure the participant system fragility. It would be a is feeling valued and listened to eg, recommendation for coaches to be shared goal setting and decision UnderstandingUnderstanding the self approachable and sensitive to making. DO these factors, while identifying and PLAN addressing nutritional behaviour; Further reading WHATWHAT REVIEW HOWOWH and demonstrating positive Abraham, A., Muir, B., and Morgan, G. nutritional practice. (2010) UK Centre for Coaching ‘It mandates a call to educate young Excellence Scoping Project Report: National and International Best Figure 1: Coach Decision Making female athletes and those involved in Practice in Level 4 Coach Model (adapted from Abraham, their training... It is important to Development. Leeds Metropolitan Muir and Morgan, 2010) educate athletes, parents and coaches.’ (Laframboise, Borody and University. Leeds. Taking the coach decision making Stern, 2013; p323). Gledhill, A., and Harwood, C. (2014). model as a worthy starting point; if Developmental experiences of elite the ‘what’ is handball, the ‘who’ is the Psychological considerations female youth soccer players. female participant and the ‘how’ is ‘A women’s neurological reality is not International Journal of Sport and strategies for teaching and learning - as constant as a man’s” (Sports coach Exercise Psychology. Vol 12; 2. then we can see how each is UK, 2013, p2). dependent on the other. By Laframboise, M., Borody, C., and understanding the ‘who’ we can make This is manifested within; higher levels Stern, P. (2013). The female athlete some assumptions about ‘how’. of sensitivity to stress and conflict, triad:a case series and narrative larger brain centres for emotion and overview. The Journal of the Canadian By implementing these strategies, we memory and a hard wiring to Chiropractor Association. Vol. 53; 4. can begin to take tentative steps to empathise. providing great coaching for women Norman, L., and French, J. (2013). and girls. In stress, commonplace in sport, Understanding how high performance women seek connection and support women athletes experience the coach ‘The physiological, psychological and as a result of larger amounts of athlete relationship. International socio-cultural specificities of women oxytocin compared to men, further, a Journal of Coaching Science. Vol 7; 1. require special considerations in all typical reaction would be one with aspects of their sports.’ - Ponorac, Ponorac, N., Palija, S., and Popovic, M. emotion, more limbic system activity, ́ Palija and Popovic (2013, p1) and not with action. (2013). Women and Sport. Sport Logica. Vol. 9; 1. ‘Effective service provision with youth As a coach, what strategies can you sport teams requires developmental adopt to cater to the individual? To Sports Coach UK. (2013). Female and gender appropriate bio-psycho- keep female athletes internally Psychology and Considerations for social adaptations.’ Visek (2013;p53). motivated in times of stress, a coach Coaching Practice. Coaching Women. Leeds.