My main role is now coaching school cricket. In this post I will reflect on the experiences of coaching 11-16 year old pupils in this environment after school came back from UK COVID lockdown in September 2020.
On returning to school it was agreed a short block of cricket would start the term. School games sessions, due to COVID, were 55 minutes long - really 45 minutes with travel and cleaning time - and were split by year group. Group sizes were in the twenties to thirties with two or three coaches. Ability and experience varied within the groups.
The parameters were tighter than ever, but my main aim was to give every pupil experience of success at cricket, given there were no matches.
We were lucky with space; a grass pitch, four net lanes, and a big outfield. Balls and other equipment had in plentiful supply. We had to be outside, but the weather was kind during the four-week block in September.
As lead coach, here was my approach, and my reflections on how it went.
Behaviour
I decided to focus on behaviours first because I wanted pupils to be clear on expectations. Agreeing behaviours gives the players more agency over their sessions and the freedom to play and explore within boundaries. Additionally, performance stems from behaviour (although this was a secondary aim).
In the first session I introduced how we would define expectations using the UAE system. Simply, I asked the players what behaviours they thought were:
Unacceptable
Acceptable
Exceptional (The aspirational behaviours)
I let the children lead this (with some scaffolding around the inevitable silly answers) and, of course, they all came up with plenty without much prompting from me. Clearly, they have been well-drilled in the past, which made my job much easier.
I insisted behaviours were clearly defined around verbs not nouns. “communication” is not a behaviour. Calling when running between the wickets is an example of communicating and could be an acceptable behaviour.
I got them all to agree.
Which of course they all did because the Head of Cricket was telling them. Some found it more difficult to stick to these behaviours when the action started.
The main purpose was to remove the grey area around what is expected and create a feeling of agency by getting the players to define it themselves. To be more specific, I tried to co-create expectations as most of the players were not developed enough to do it totally on their own. This was followed up by providing support and challenge to individuals to grow into these minimums (acceptable) and beyond them (exceptional).
Mostly this process of defining expectations was effective. Pupils greet me with “Are we doing UAEs?” even if we pass each other outside of games lessons. Of course, as teenage boys they are mostly trying to engage in sarcastic banter. Nevertheless I am delighted it has become ingrained.
On reflection, the thing that got the most pushback was the session where were outlined how it worked. We did no activity. Pupils complained for weeks afterwards that we “do too much talking” even in later sessions where I encouraged them to take some responsibility and start a session with no input from me. Perhaps a better way would have been a “lesson 0” in a classroom away from games time to set up the expectations. Unfortunately, time did not permit, so given the constraints I would do the same again. Ideally, players will be more used to me next summer term and we can get straight into things with little explanation.
The second piece of behaviours is accountability.
As we know, deciding behaviours and then not following up on them is a waste of time.
So, I also introduced the Rule of Three (R3), gradually rolling it out when learning opportunities came up. As a reminder, R3 kicks in when any agreed behaviour standard is not met:
Player realises their mistake, acknowledges it and self-corrects.
Player does not realise and a team-mate feeds back quickly. Player acknowledges and corrects.
Player and team-mates both miss it and the supervising coach feeds back. Player and team-mates acknowledge and corrects.
Broadly this worked with most players being able to define UAEs quickly within a couple of sessions of trying, then cracking on with working on improving skills. However, it was not without issues.
This was one of the more difficult principles to implement because of,
Lack of self-awareness.
Deliberate disruption.
Weak peer feedback.
Weak Rule 3 feedback.
Kids are kids, so a lack of self-awareness was expected but not tolerated. Levels varied between individuals and ages. For example, we all agreed to listen when a member of staff was talking. The deal was there would be no long lectures from the coach in return. However, without fail someone would talk to their friend or shout an answer at every huddle in every session, then look surprised when it was pointed out. Sometimes multiple times in a row.
This led to the unhelpful circle of;
Pre-agreed error, not self-corrected
Stop session and correction under R3
Continue session
Error
Repeat
Which then leads to pupils complaining they want to “just play”. This triggered me to say “If you want to play, then behave in the way you agreed you could. If you can’t do that, we need to change the agreement”. Which I feel like fell on deaf ears even though no one ever tried to seriously renegotiate the agreement.
To practice self-awareness behaviours, I introduced simple activities. These were easy to understand, quick to define UAEs, and simple to start. They could also be stopped if a breach of agreed standards were ignored. I was surprised how often a task like running round cones had to be stopped, but by the end there was clearly some learning happening. This seemed to extend into more cricket skill based sessions.
Tied to this was the effort some boys took to be deliberately disruptive. These boys were so creative you must admire the effort. Often the goal of such players seemed to be to kill the session with multiple R3 resets, even when the task was as straightforward as running or counting. The basic forms were:
Ignoring pre-agreed behaviour rules, then claiming “I didn’t know” or making up an excuse and saying “but I just...”
“Lawyering” UAEs by coming up with a behaviour then finding a loophole so they could break their own rule and saying “but we didn’t say anything about...”
Calling out unhelpful comments during defining UAEs.
Had these pupils directed as much mindful energy into cricket as they did causing issues, they would be top of the form. It was not hard for the loop of behaviour to roll on for great chunks of the session, which is frustrating because when asked, the “assassins” always said they wanted to play. Yet they were the ones preventing play.
Why did this happen?
Possibly it is tied to being a teenager who doesn’t want to be told what to do. The resistance goes up as they fight for identity and agency. While not a psychologist, I would turn to self-determination theory to provide an educated guess into their thinking.
According to SDT, pupils are motivated by a feeling of making their own decisions. As don’t see themselves as cricketers and the don’t want to be forced into doing things. My style of coaching gives them agency if they want to take it, yet they don’t want to take it because it will mean they are being “fooled” into being a cricketer (and they don’t like cricket so they can’t let that happen).
Possibly this small number of pupils have already decided - whatever I say - they are set on disruption as a way of getting through the lesson with agency and identity intact. I don’t know if this is true, but if it is, perhaps the solution is,
A better justification of “why” upfront. It’s not about making you into something you are not. It’s about using sport to work out who you are.
Getting everyone into the habit of pupils speaking first and last when called together.
Giving the worst offenders more clear roles, especially around review of behaviour
Disruptive pupils aside, most pupils also struggled with the peer feedback (rule 2) element of R3.
Remember the basic principle is to give peers time to correct each other’s behaviour. When it worked players start giving each other feedback based on trying to help. For example, a common behaviour is trying to hit the ball through cones when batting. If a player deliberately hit the ball into the banned area, his team-mates would remind him he’s trying to hit the cones. Next time he would try. No coach intervention.
When it didn’t work here is what happened,
Players shouted “unacceptable” or “exceptional” anytime over anything. Unrelated to the pre-agreed behaviours.
Players either didn’t notice or ignored behaviours, requiring a “stop and reset” from the coach.
Players could not give helpful feedback, instead resorting to blame (“what ARE you doing?”, “You need to change your mindset”), excuses (“they have a better team”, “I have a sore leg”) or calling on the teacher as police (“Sir, he cheated, it’s not fair”)
Of course, this is part of the learning process and every chance I got I introduced tools they could use to be better at R3 feedback. The most effective advice was,
When communicating - on or off the pitch - tell the other person something they can do which is specific and helpful.
If you receive helpful feedback, accept it, acknowledge it and act on it immediately.
The more pupils did this, the better they got at doing it. However, it did take me a while to realise this approach was the solution. It took a few weeks longer than I hoped, with more disruption at first. However, as the kids picked up on it, the work rate went through the roof.
The final issue with accountability was staffing: I was the only cricket specialist so led every session. All the staff assisting were experienced, competent coaches and teachers in other sports. However, they had not been fully briefed and had not had time to pick up the ideas of UAEs and R3. As a result, there were occasional times when R3 didn’t work. For example, one game involved counting tokens. Players had forgotten to count tokens and the supervising member of staff had not picked up on it. At the end of the session the players had no idea how many tokens they had. While it would not be fair to put everything at the feet of the supervising staff member, it’s also true they could have picked up on it.
This example is not a criticism of that staff members behaviour management skills. There were times I did similar: Sometimes your focus is somewhere else. However, moments like these highlight how difficult it is to support intentions. In hindsight it would have been better to brief staff before the start of the cricket block. It also would have been better to do more reviews and reflection around implementing the behaviour rules. However, time did not allow. Next time I will make more time.
Despite these issues, I did see stronger behaviours coming from both players and coaches over the period. There were some real success stories, including one boy who was totally disengaged and disruptive the start and transformed into a highly engaged leader by the end. There was another who went from being distracted and unhelpful to his team mates to genuinely helping others. Most groups showed overall improvement even if some individual didn't progress as far as others. As a result, I strongly recommend a core of establishing behaviours at every session, then getting R3 nailed down to enforce those behaviours.
Session Structure
The cricket was based on developing understanding by learning in the game. I wanted to encourage:
Batting: Hit the ball hard, into gaps.
Batting: Run between the wickets.
Bowling: Hit the stumps.
Fielding: High catches.
Fielding: Fast and clean pickup.
Fielding: Throw at the stumps.
Additionally, if players learned some of the traditions of the game along the way (respecting the umpires and opposition, padding up and taking guard, playing in the spirit of the game and so on), all the better.
The basic structure was modified games.
The structure of activities evolved over the sessions as I got used to the challenges of a relatively large number of kids in a relatively short session. I broke the groups into three or four small teams who stayed roughly the same through the block. The teams competed against each other and against themselves with different challenges set at every session. Teams rotated around the activities.
As much as possible, the challenges were designed to reflect the game experience. For me that meant bowlers bowling at batsmen, ideally with fielders (perception-action coupling). The latter was not always possible with numbers, meaning nets and cones were used for convenience.
However, there was barely any non-fielding activity used that was not bowler vs. batsman. I avoided - but didn’t totally ignore - isolated skill activity.
On the field we could play hard ball activities, but we didn’t have time for matches (something I learned in the first round of sessions). The activities were based around everyone bowling and everyone having a shot at hitting the ball into gaps.
For example, the “V game” challenges players to hit straight and be rewarded by fewer fielders in that area.
I experimented with hard ball games on the pitch but “time on task” was so low - and dominated by the best players - I adapted and played small-sided and fast-moving games with windballs. This removed the need to pad up and gave everyone more goes.
The downside of this compromise was two things:
Some pupils complained they wanted to “do hard ball”.
Some pupils were demotivated by the soft ball activities.
Neither of these were deal-breakers. Usually a quick word with the pupils in question redirected them back on task. In the occasional case of repeat offenders, I gave them a job as a an R3 scanner, so they had responsibility for the behaviour of their peers.
It’s jarring that some pupils are perfectly happy to have a net with a hard ball for an hour but don’t want to play a modified game with a soft ball for 20 minutes. Neither is ideal, but at least the game is a game with opposition and scores. Some kids need some convincing to get into it.
Regardless, it was necessary to use nets. Space didn’t allow more than one game on a pitch, so those who dreamed of hard ball nets got their wish.
Nets always contained a focused activity around,
Bowling the ball in a target area (bowl at the stumps)
Hitting the ball in a target area (hit the gaps)
I mixed this up with other elements like points for behaviours, working on review and reflections, and making it competitive (points for success).
The challenge is to make such a repetitive task engaging to both experienced and inexperienced players. I tried to get boys to keep score with tokens, but this had mixed success. Some kids really bought into the idea while others forgot or were not motivated to try. The basic challenge of bat versus ball kept most going without the need for additional games, score keeping or tricks. Perhaps the lesson is to keep it simple if simple works.
I avoided the common “everyone bats for 5 minutes then bowls” nets. This is easy to set up and run as a coach but I’m not convinced how much learning or engagement these types of nets have. They are not realistic or competitive in any meaningful way.
I made sure no one was stuck in nets doing the repetitive bowling for a full session. I tried to get every person in a competitive batting activity against bowling and added in competitive fielding games to keep it fresh.
Despite the mixed success of competition, I still think there is value in keeping scores within and across activities. I would like to try again next cricket block. Keeping scores shows progression and trying to beat your score is very motivating (see video game design). I may just have to get cleverer about how to keep scores. Having a score also allows you to bring in difficulty levels to make sure all levels see a challenge. If you carry the level from one session to the next you are always at the right challenge level. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to reliably do this, although I did have success with levels within several activities.
As the block progressed and focus moved away from behaviours towards skills, I introduced a whiteboard: The board included the mission (always one simple achievable thing like “get 30 tokens”) and the activities for the day. I realised the boys were not used to self-sufficiency, but it amazed me how few of them could tell me the mission, despite it being written on a board right next to me.
This did change over the block so I am expecting they will be faster the next time around.
The board was helpful for handing responsibility to players. When they ask, “what are we doing?” or “can we do hard ball?” I would point them to the board and tell them to come back to me if they had questions. Some of the questions generated by this were inspiringly good. Additionally, some players started taking leadership; checking the board, corralling their team and trying to make a start. In the ideal world, this would happen at every session. It means things start faster because players are not waiting for me and the session is more focused because the boys have organised it themselves. It also means players are self-organising (with appropriate scaffolding). Everyone wins.
Of course, kids being kids, this takes some a few weeks to work out and others a lot longer. However, what I saw was some clear progress in that area.
As mentioned before, most of the activities were batsman vs bowler. Mainly this was to expose pupils to something close to the experience of games with limited time and space. It had the additional benefit of keeping everyone busy, whatever their ability level.
Players were not exposed to any isolated technical work other than the odd exception (for example the boy who could not bowl at all with a straight arm). This was deliberate for a couple of reasons,
I prefer teaching with a game structure as I believe it transfers to game awareness and problem-solving more quickly.
Isolated technical work is less fun for players and so becomes frustrating to manage in a group of variable motivation.
However, technique is still important and I want players to develop technical skill. To get players working on this, I would do an activity, pause to ask them how they think they could be more successful and press them to see what technical changes they could make.
They mostly knew they should do, even if they didn’t do it in the moment. For example, a common sight was a boy smashing the ball as hard as he could in the air to leg. Yet when asked, most would understand playing straight was more useful in the long run. When clarity of purpose was added, there was development within the sessions as time went on.
Retention of skill between sessions was also important.
I tested this by running a previous activity unguided and with minimal instruction. The most successful of these was “catchy shubby”, a fast-paced softball game that largely self-regulates. The game is fun and popular with the kids. It also tests bowling skills, fielding skills, batting strike rotation, and commitment. In this game, you can quickly see who is developing with minimal chat from the coach. When coupled with some reflective questions, both new learning and retention seemed to be happening.
The real test will be in the next block in the summer term, especially with games back. I do feel like we have laid some groundwork towards that goal.
Summary
The aim of the block of cricket was to give a positive cricket experience to pupils at school. This was achieved by:
Co-creating and co-managing expectations with UAEs and R3.
Aiming to develop self-sufficiency, feedback and reflection as a framework for skill development.
Offering range of adaptable activities focused on key aspects of developing cricket skills
Looking for skill development, retention and progression where possible.
Each one had a level of success and areas to improve. Overall, a platform has been established for the summer term where we have longer and (hopefully) some matches against other schools.