Netball season is over

Miya's netball season finished last week.  A couple of months ago I wrote here about how she had joined the (HASCA) homeschool team.

So, the homeschool team won two out of seven of their grading games, and were put into competition Grade 7 (out of 10).

After the grading games, they had another seven competition games.  They won two, drew one, and lost four.  Consequently, they came sixth (out of eight teams) in their grade.

In the final game of the competition they played a team that they had also played in the grading round.  In the grading round the homeschoolers won; in the competition round the teams drew.

I give these statistics not because winning matters (it doesn't), but because it gives context.

There are about 80 teams in the overall competition for that age group (school Year 6).  We can assume that the teams in a grade start the competition round at a mostly similar playing level.  Any team might win their grade.

Consequently, the way I see it is that the position a team comes in their grade competition reflects the amount of effort the team put into playing.  The top-ranked team genuinely deserves their placing because they worked hard to improve themselves more than the other teams.  Similarly, the lower ranked teams deserve their placings because they didn't put as much time and effort into improving themselves.

As I see it, the homeschoolers deserved their sixth placing (out of eight).  To be honest, they didn't put a lot of effort into their netball this season.  Practices were fairly minimal, with a team get-together for about 30 minutes to an hour before each game.  And these practices were fairly general in structure, with no apparent learning objectives or systematic skills development.

In contrast, we might look at Mulan's first season of netball, which was in 2015.  That year there wasn't a homeschool team, so Mulan played for Bayswater School.  In addition to the game, the team met twice a week (at school lunchtimes) for practices.  The two team coaches were also teachers, and they were very organised in their coaching.  Activities during practices were varied and explicitly chosen to develop skills that had been identified as weaknesses during the previous game.  Consequently, the team significantly improved their netball skills, and they came second in their grade competition.

I realise that improving ball skills and netball playing skills are not the only reasons why someone might join a netball team.  The social aspect is hugely important too.  As is enjoyment and the positivity of participating in team sports.

But in my opinion we can have these social and enjoyment aspects but also have a bit more emphasis on skills development.  Without taking anything away from the awesome job that the team coach and manager did this season, I really wish the focus had been slightly more on the game skills side of things.