Practical ideas (6 to 8 years old)

The following ideas will help provide appropriate sporting opportunities for children aged six to eight. They aim to provide activities that are fun, where each child can experience success regularly, improve their skill base, and be involved in controlled competition as an integral part of the program.

• Sessions should be short: no longer than 45 to 60 minutes each.
• Sessions should include a skills segment: one or two specific skills can be taught and practised for 10 to 15 minutes each. Teaching too many skills at once will confuse the child and the skills may not be learnt properly.
• Teams should be small: small sized teams ensure each child has the maximum opportunity to use in competitive situations the skills they have learnt in practice.
• Sessions should build on skills taught in previous sessions.
• If possible, each child should have their own equipment, and practice individually and in pairs as much as possible. This will help maximise a child's opportunities to practise the skills.
• Parents are encouraged to be involved and not be simply spectators. Parents can participate with their child, or take small groups of four to six children for skills practice.
• One person should coordinate the sessions: this person should lead the sessions generally, and organise and teach participating parents before or during the session.
• Competitive games should emphasise the use of skills, rather than winning or losing. Praise should be given freely for attempts and correct execution, but there should be no criticism for mistakes or errors.
• Involve children in a number of sports: offer short seasons of a range of sports rather than longer seasons of one or two sports. A multi sport program could allow children to rotate among sports, different sports could be provided every term or every eight to ten weeks, or specific sports could be offered in short blocks (say six to ten weeks) more than once in a year so that children could move in and out of that sport.

Within any one year a child should try a minimum of three to four sports, and possibly more over the two to three year period in this age group. This ensures that learning is new and exciting and that a range of skills and competitive situations are learnt which will be of use later in life.

Children should try individual sports and team sports with a range of different team sizes. Ultimately children will make their own choice of what they want to play and should do so on the basis of having tried many sports.

A child may be good at or enjoy a sport his or her parents play, and which may not be traditional to school or club experience or culture.

As a child gets older he or she can specialise, but right through the primary school years and into junior secondary, the emphasis lies on participating in two, three or more sports. Where a child shows ability in a particular sport, and the child's goal is elite participation, pressure to specialise will build in the middle secondary years (age 15 on).

Many elite players still play other sports in a more social setting.