MY LEVEL 1: BRYN'S BLOG

Norfolk FA's Digital Marketing Apprentice, Bryn Hughes has taken his first steps on the FA coaching ladder as he has completed half of the FA Level 1 in Coaching Football, at theFDC.

The FA Level 1 Course is the entry level award for coaches working in grassroots football, giving them the tools, knowledge and experience they need to ensure you can better support the development of future players. It also allows them to progress up the coaching ladder with the next step being The FA Level 2. To find out more about The FA Level 1 in Coaching please click here.

Bryn currently holds a player/coach role at Yaxham FC and below are his thoughts and observations after attending the second day of the Level 1 Course.

We started the second day reflecting on the learning from the first day of the course. It was great to hear from different coaches that they had already begun to implement ideas in their coaching that Laurence had shown us previously. One coach said that by changing a few simple things about his session it meant he was able to get a lot more out of his players and they commented saying that they enjoyed the session more than usual.

The rest of the morning workshop was spent delivering a session that we would use back at one of our clubs that was working on a specific Principle of Play and Technical Component. In our groups we planned the session carefully making sure that it would be in line with the DNA Coach Education Fundamentals that we had learnt about. The practise that my group delivered was working on in-possession penetrative passing. It was good to see what the other groups delivered as we were analysing them on what they did well and what they could improve, it meant that we also identified areas within ourselves that we could adapt to further benefit the players we were coaching.

The afternoon was spent outside with more practical learning as Laurence showed us slight changes we could make to our practises to take them to the next level. He emphasised that the ball should be in-play for at least 70% of the session which would lead to better and more enjoyable training. We finished the day reviewing what we had done thus far on the course with everyone identifying things they can take back to their club environment.

I am looking forward to this Sunday to learn about match-based practises with a new tutor, as well as catching up with the other coaches on the course.

Follow @NorfolkCountyFA on twitter to see the latest updates from Bryn's Level 1 Course taking place at theFDC, Bowthorpe.