Sports Development Continuum1

Sports development continuum

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1.1 Sports development continuum

Sports development is about helping, supporting and maturing of young skills from all

background and start to play a sport, and be able to succeed at it. Sports planning is the key to

achieving these goals.However, due to the lack of sport planning tools, sports management

organization has been borrowing generic principles, theories, and models.Sports

developmentcontinuum is a model that presents a person sports involvement by what stage they

are at. The model also highlights the way the person can use and become and an elite performer.

According to Balyi (2001), the model is divided into four stages; foundation, participation,

performance, and excellence (elite).

The foundation stage

This is the stage which is made of the athletes who are beginners in sports. Moreover, it

means that the foundation stage is made up of people who have no experience or less experience

and aim on developing their sports skills and movements. Mostly, this stage happens at school

stages as a PE (Physical education) lesson (Bramham et al., 2001).Here, the basic and critical

skill is learned by the beginner and be able to progress up the pyramid to performance and

excellence. For example, netball, the basic skills through catching the ball, stopping the ball and
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footwork are taught in the foundation stage. The position of the player, catching and passing the

ball and running is typically taught here. In addition, netball is mostly introduced at the early

stages of education such as primary school level as according to Bramham et al. (2001). The

pathway allows for a variety of younger generation to experience the best out of netball sports

resulting in an increase in participation and performance. However, it is a sport that is well

known for the performance and elite and not well known in the foundation and performance.

The participation stage

The participation stage is where the young begin to regularly participate in specific

activities for the purpose of enjoyment, and when a particular sport becomes more important to

them over the other sports. Developing from foundation stage to participation stage, the player

may become part of the sports team, for instance, the sports festival or the local club and be able

to compete with others of a similar ability. The sports clubs becomes the most important activity

at this stage as it is the link of development to the next level.

The skills learned in the foundation stage are applied here by the participants through

seeing and connecting the fundamental skills together so as to perform a movement. For

example, split landing off in netball and relating it to basic skills of playing. Additionally, in the

participation stage, skills are developed and strategic knowledge of skills isincorporated. Netball

is mostly performed in secondary schools over the primary schools. The secondary school

curriculum spectrum the participation of netball competition to the national level and perhaps

after secondary schools clubs participate in international level competitions. Clubs participation

helps develop the participant performance and skills of a certain sport.

Participation in a certain sport such as netball can be one hour a day where the participant

attends training sessions at the club or sports festival. The skills will be basic but the
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development will get harder over a period of time as the participant learns on basic skills. The

basic skills learned here are player attacking and defending techniques, basic court movement,

and different netball variation.

Progressing from participation level to performance level, a player must consistently play

well for him or her to be spotted by a professional club. The professional club is able to pay

wages on the non-elite level and the player plays on a scouted time to increase performance

chances.

The Performance Stage

The performance stage is the key stage in developing sports specific skills and improving

techniques and performance of a player. Moreover, this requires continuous training with the

involvement of a qualified professional coach. However, by the time when players reach the

performance stage in sports development continuum, there are participating and competing in

high standards such as professional clubs in county levels and regional levels.

According to Parmenter (2010), for a player to be able to move through the sports

development continuum and reach performance stage, he or she must have taken individual

responsibility for their actions and personal mindset of a game to play. For example, joining a

netball club at a county or regional level and taking the role of learning from sources outside.

The player should be able to make perpetual responses and creative moves when marked by a

defender in netball and create a dodge move and pass the defender with no help of coach or

playmates.

The player in performance stage has more experience however he or she needs to be

supported, guided and helped by the coach so as to develop to the next level in continuum
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pyramid so as to become an elite player. For example, the netball supportive network is

outstanding as it helps the player to continually master her position and performance skills.

The elite stage

According to Abbott and Collins (2004), the elite stage is also known as the excellence

stage. Only a few players who start at foundation stage reach the elite stage as it is the peak of

sports development continuum pyramid model of participation and performance. Reaching the

elite stage a player becomes a top class athlete who takes parts in international competitions.

Here, the players have perfected their skills and training are conducted by sports governing

bodies at the national level. The players here are placed to play for the national team, for

example, p[layers are placed to play for England netball national team. The coaching is from

professional coaches and receives a 1-2-1 training. Players at the elite stage are able to set

SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Real and Time-Bound) targets on both long and

short terms (Doran, 2014). A player at this stage is able to solve the problem, maintain an

automatic behavior and self-motive. The player or players in this stage unlike other stages of

performance do not require much help and support on learning and mastering of skills as they

have mastered all basic skills.

1.2Netball Sports Development Proposal

According to Petlichkoff (2004), netball in England has much participated in high school

level over the clubs in the county and regional levels. Schools need to start supporting the local

clubs for young girls who are leaving high school and playing netball to be able to continue to

participate and develop through these local clubs. Most of the girls who play netball in high

school do not proceed on playing netball after high school as there are no strong local clubs that

can absorb them and develop them to become an elite player in England.
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There are limited programmes and opportunities in netball participation, training and

competition in England clubs as compared to high school netball participation(Schmid, Pratt &

Witmer, 2006). The adolescence girls are the most affected as the crucial part of netball training

and development takes place in high school. Most have no interest and involvement in netball

playing as they are no more successful elite player to act as role models according to Sotiriadou,

Shilbury and Quick (2008). Furthermore, the girls term the game as tiresome as no player will

maintain a certain position in the whole game. Players in netball are required to change position

from time to time (Netball Association, 2015). The strategy to overcome this barrier of

participation is by promoting the local clubs and regional netball clubs so as to absorb more girls

from high school anddevelop them to elite players.

2.1 Structure and Role of Local and National Sports Development Provider

2.1.1 Structure of Local and National sports development provider

All organizational sports development providers have a structure that staffs follow to

deliver their programmes. Both the local and national sports development provider have similar

structures. The provider gives authority, communication with a scheme of sports development.

There are four main communication types according to Hylton (2001);

 Committees –Committees are the most common in the voluntary sector. They are made

of person and headed by a chairperson or a captain. There is a treasurer who looks over

financial affairs and a secretary to act the administration roles. There is also a person who

looks over child welfare.

 Working groups – working groups are looser than systems of the committee.They are

mostly formed in national sports development providers in partnerships. They function by

each of the partners sending work to each other in the group. They ensure that all the
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interested parties are kept informed and are able to achieve the aim set out by the sports

development provider.

 Forms –forms are made of a set of people who are experts on the issues involved with the

sports development provider. The group of people meets to discuss the problems or issues

and put forward ideas and solutions for the sports development provider.

 Consultation groups –the consultation groups are a large group and are used for

consultation on people who are involved in the sports development schemes. The people

who are likely to be consultedinclude the local politicians, county sports partnerships, the

clergyassociation, and many others.

2.1.2 Roles of Local and national sports development provider

According to Shepard et al. (2001), the roles of both national and local sports

development providers are similar to the structures. Both local and national sports development

provider contributes to the communities around them. They include diverse dimension, aims, and

individual setups. Enabling is the first style of delivery is a sports development provider.

Enabling is called when the sports development provider responds to participants needs by

providing resources and facilities to give them opportunities. Facilitating is another role which

involves helping and motivating people. Both enabling and facilitating aims on participants to

run the teams or the clubs themselves.

Direct delivery is carried out by the sports developers’ professional directly such as the

one whichis carried out by local authority officers. Strategic refers to the direct links which come

together (Cavill, 2010). For instance, it is known as an integratedapproach. The links include

healthy living and aims on lifelong learning.

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Operational is another role of sports development provider which refers todealing with

people that are concerned directlysuch as adolescence women or disaffected youngsters. The

operations are delivered by leaders professionally who have community knowledge (Schmid,

Pratt & Witmer, 2006). Guidance is also an important role in a sports development center. For

example, guidance on safety measures required for disabled athletes. They are provided on the

basis of participation and performance.

Most roles are engaged in sports participation by helping increases the number of people

who are taking part in that sport. Participation ranges from sports and gender, age range, and

ability levels. Participation is the target byboth local and national sports development provider.

Performance is the measure of ability level and skills of the participant by sports development

provider. The methods used are known as excellence (Schmid, Pratt & Witmer, 2006).

Excellence is the peak of the sports development continuum. Moreover, local and national sports

development provider works in harmony of talent development. For example, is UK sports.

Local sports development providers try to meet the community's needs while national sports

development providers try to meet the national needs of the participants.

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3.1 Comparison between sport England and Sports Coach UK

3.1.1 Sports England

Sports England is mainly concerned with sports at grassroots. Sports England works

together with national sports governing bodies, a charity organization, and local authorities to

fund people with opportunities to participate in sports (Foster, 2005). Sports England is made of

the main body that controls overall activities, the executive board responsible for daily operation,

nine regional champions responsible for sports in the community and three teams which are

locally responsible for making sports accessible.

3.1.2 Sports Coach UK

The vision of Sports Coach UK is to provide top quality coaching to every participant.

The organization is a charitable one which is responsible for recruiting, developing, and retaining

coaches (Shepard et al., October 2, 2002).The organization has worked on many projects to

develop a world-class coaching system in England. The organization offers training, workshops

and coaching support. The sports coach the UK is run the same as sports England with each level

of management taking a specific role with the aim of developing coaches across the United

Kingdom.

3.2 Quality measures of sports development providers

The measure of quality in sports developments initiatives are through organization

against the visitors or users with exactly what they are getting. The participants or the players'

excellence and performance are what measures the quality of initiative in the sports development

continuum. Clubmark is a universal across sports accreditation and acknowledged by sports

clubs. According to Armstrong et al. (2008) quality measure of sports development initiatives
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arebased on the criteria that it must be supported by evidence such as playing programmes, the

duty of care and welfare, club management and club knowledge. The measure of quality

initiative in sports development is accessed through the level the player reach and the

successfulness of the club or team. Most of the player quit the sport before they attain the

topmost level of sport development continuum.

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