Starting A.. Holiday Scheme

What do you do and how do you do it if you do not have any previous experience to call on? You could approach a recognised company or group to run it for you but they would take the biggest share of any money made. If you are happy for this then you may want to proceed but if you want to use the course to build club funds and develop club spirit then the following information and guidance will certainly help you.

A STARTING POINT – SOME QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED

Can you meet the demands of a DAY OR WEEK LONG COURSE?

• Have you the patience,
• the resources,
• the equipment,
• the venue,
• the staff,
• the demand, (school holidays)
• the weather,
• the organisational skills,
• the creativity and the commitment to see it through?

If you believe you can answer these questions positively then you may want to look at the process in greater detail.

• Qualifications and Staff required.
• Are your Staff all qualified to be working with children?
• Have your Staff recent Police checks or coaching qualifications?
• Are you or one of your Staff First Aid trained?

Target Group

• Who is the course for?
• Is it for a club only?
• Is it open to the public?
• What age are you hoping to attract?
• How much will we charge for the course?

Venue

• What venue will you use?
• Will the course be indoors or outdoors?
• Will the time of the year cause problems in terms of weather conditions?
• Are there changing / toileting facilities?
• Is there shelter from inclement weather?

Duration

• How many days?
• What hours will you offer each day?

Insurance

• Who will you insure yourself with?

Publicity

• How are you going to advertise?
• Will you advertise through one club?
• Will you advertise through a paper or some other strand of the media.

Children’s Safety and Daily Procedures

• Parents / carers want their children to be safe - They must be safe and it is your responsibility to ensure that everything is done to keep them safe!
• How safe will the children be?
• Will there always be a minimum of two adults supervising them?
• Have you done a risk assessment of the venue?
• Will you have rules and regulations for the group to follow?
• Are parents / carers given copies of these rules?
• Do parents / carers know the times of the activities? They may want to return at lunch time with food or to share the break with their children.
• How close are the toileting facilities?
• What rules will exist around accompanying children to these toilets? One child being taken to the toilet is an ‘at risk’ situation for both, so organise toilet runs where a group of children can be accompanied to the toilet. Count them out and in frequently.
• Will there be a female member of Staff working with you?
• How many breaks will there be? Young children need lots of breaks and must be supervised when drinking to make sure they are taking on fluids.
• Pick up times are important, are you aware of any parents that have a system for sharing pickups?
• Are you aware of the children that can go with others at the end of the day?
• Do parents / carers know where they deliver their children? Do they also know that they must be delivered to you or your staff to be signed in.
• Do parents / carers know they should collect their children from the coach and not expect the child to wonder into a car park or along a street looking for their car ride home.
• Parents / carers need to know that they cannot leave their youngsters with only one adult coach as this is placing both adult and youngsters at risk.
• Do the parents / carers know the equipment and clothing that each player is expected to bring with them? What is the weather is hot or particularly cold and wet?
• Do you want to provide a lunch for the group? This is always a problem because of diet and Religious observance. Much better if they provide there own lunch.
• Do parents / carers know to provide a plentiful supply of drink as hard work requires a large liquid intake.
• Have you made the parents / carers aware that it is their responsibility to inform the coach of any medical condition that their child may have that may require the intervention of the coach at any time? For example a diabetic may need to stop for a snack or inject during the training.
• Have you checked to see if any of the group have Religious beliefs that may have consequences for their training time with you? An example would be Muslim players who may be fasting.
• Do you have an accident book / record sheet to record any injuries so that you have a record of them, you do this for health records or for use by any medical staff for easy reference later. Also record any that result in a player exhibiting obvious pain or discomfort before they able to resume training. You are then able to pass this information on to the parents / carers for further action if necessary.
• Are the goals to be used fixed or can they be moved? If they can be moved are they secured to the floor? The coach or ground staff move them if they have to be moved, never the children.

Your Daily Sessions

The children attend the course to have fun, be safe and learn some football.

Therefore these three strands must run throughout you day:-

• Depending on your daily timings, you may decide to start at 10.00 and play for 2 hours before having lunch and then beginning the afternoon session.
• How you organise your day will depend on your own particular strengths and those of your other coaches.
• You decide on the length of time you have to work with and plan for a warm up and a warm down which should average out at 5 – 10 minutes for a warm up (depending on weather conditions) and 10 minutes for a warm down.
• You must always finish any session with a game of some type otherwise how will you know if the players have learned anything or improved at all?
• Penalty prize competitions, ball juggling etc are all activities that children love so you can be as creative as you like with the activities as long as the children enjoy them in a safe environment.

Dismissal

This is the most critical part of any coaching session. The players will be excited and tired after a great day and they may not be concentrating fully on their own safety so it is your responsibility to continue to ensure their safety. Players are not permitted to leave until a parent / carer comes to collect them. If parents do want their youngsters to travel home alone or in groups you must have a letter to confirm this. Parents / carers sitting in cars and waiting for their youngsters to find them should be discouraged. All these requirements may seem exaggerated to some adults and children but it is so much easier with hindsight to pinpoint where a mistake was made and a young child injured, hurt or even killed.

Self Evaluation

Once you have had time to digest each day you should write your own self evaluation so that you can highlight the successes and any areas you may need to improve on. Keep these views they may well help you in the future. Above all enjoy your coaching.

Parents / Carers and their Children’s Course Evaluation

This is extremely important as you will need to have a clear idea of how the course went and what modifications you may require in the future. You need to ask both parents and children what they enjoyed and what they would like to have changed.

Many such courses have evolved into excellent examples of safe enjoyable times for children because the coach has listened to suggestions and put these into practice.