Differentiation

Differentiation is important in the world of sporting as differentiation is when a coach would tailor their coaching to meet the student or athletes needs. The drills that have been set out maybe too complex or too easy for one another, Bailey (2009). It has been stated in the article of Vickerman (2015) that coaches who know how to use differentiation in a session will allow them to have a framework for effective coaching. This suggests that coaches will become better at catering the needs for all their players and will not come across events where athletes are finding sessions too easy or athletes struggling with sessions. Following this up it has been stated in the article of Pierce (2009) that differentiating allows every player to have the opportunity to have some success in sessions and matches whilst challenging them, therefore it is important to understand the concept of differentiation. 

Differentiation takes part when coaches are planning their session as they would note down how they can adapt the session for certain players (Morley 2006). The following article also agrees with this statement as it states that coaches fail to implement the method as they do not plan and have an initial thought process on how they can use this in sessions (Zetou 2008).

In my experience at BCFA I have come across differentiation. At the beginning of my coaching experience I carried out some basic passing and shooting drills, some athletes were showing great and successful passes, however some athletes were doing unsuccessful passes. Therefore, I realised in the session that some athletes may need to practice on their long passing and subsequently I sent this group of students to the side to practice their long passing. I only realised the ability in the athletes during the session and therefore I reflected in action. 

However, moving forward in my sessions, I was planning out sessions every week and I thought to carry out agility training as I knew this is very important in football. in my planning of the session I anticipated that some athletes will struggle with the agility training and therefore I planned in advance and set up slightly easier drill for these athletes. 

For this drill I set up six rows of cones and two further down, so athletes would sprint once they past the six rows of cones. The drill is shuffling side to side in the six rows and then sprinting right to the end where the two cones are placed. All athletes had to beat their time which they had achieved last week. 

The session was going great; however, I noticed some athletes were beating their time by ten to fifteen seconds and some athletes were not beating their time at all. Therefore, those athletes that were beating their time were given K bands to wear and then carry out the drill. This put them through their paces and allowed them to slightly improve on their best times. However, there were also athletes that were struggling to beat their time therefore I sent this group of athletes to the easier drills I had set up earlier, so that they did not have to sprint as much as the others, and once they had seen some progress I put the yards of the cones back to normal and the athletes started to beat their time by a few seconds. 

This helped as every athlete was showing progression in the session and this helped me realise that I should always think about differentiation as it can appear. 

Bibliography 

Bailey, R., Morley, D. & Dismore, H. (2009) Talent development in physical education: a national survey of policy and practice in England, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 14(1), 59-72

Pierce, R 2009, ‘Peer Coaching to Improve Classroom Differentiation: Perspectives from Project CLUE’, Roeper Review, 31, 1, pp. 27-39, ERIC, EBSCOhost

Morley, D. & Bailey, R. (2006) Meeting the needs of your most able pupils: PE and sport. London: David Fulton Publishers

Zetou, E., Kourtesis, Th., Giazitzi, K., & Michalopoulou, M. (2008). Management and Content Analysis of Timeout during Volleyball Games. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 8(1), 44–55.

Vickerman, P., Walsh, B. & Money, J. (2015) “Planning for an inclusive approach to learning and teaching” In, Capel, S., & Whitehead, M. (2015) Learning to Teach Physical Education in the Secondary School: A companion to school experience. Routledge: Oxon. Pp.156-170