HI I am new to this forum. I have been playing Badminton for about 5 years now and i have the opportunity to coach kids aged 8-11 next week. i do not have any formal badminton coaching qualifications however i am going to be sitting my badminton leaders award in march. the kids i will be coaching are in week 6 so they have some very basic knowledge of badminton. does anyone have any ideas of where i should start with them? is there any websites with good drills or fun games that i could use with them? cheers for any help in advance.
Once you have a Leader's award, I encourage you to acquire the Instructor award. The Leader's award qualifies you to assist a coach, but you must take the Instructor award (roughly equivalent to BE level 1) to qualify as a coach. Until you have your Instructor award, Badminton Scotland will not endorse or insure your coaching activities. In the meantime -- provided you are adequately covered by some other insurance and responsibility arrangement -- show them the basic neutral "forehand" grip. As soon as you feel they are ready, introduce them to the idea of scoring and playing a game; children love informal competition. If they are not ready for that, try simpler games. "Pass the shuttle along the net" with netshots; "see how long you and a partner can keep the shuttle in the air". "Egg and spoon" races, but with shuttles and rackets instead. Contact your county association; I'm sure they will be happy to send you a list of games
Look, you can't learn everything off the internet You will just have to make some effort and go on a coaching course. Websites are of minimal use here: you need to be taught, you need to discuss with other coaches, you need to practise your presentation and group discipline skills, you need to have instructors observe your performance, and you need to get some experience coaching your target age group. There ain't no websites to teach you that. In the meantime, if you're just looking for games for children, contact your local badminton coaching secretary. He can send you some sheets with games and equipment information. And remember, the internet is not actually that great a research tool. It's very fast, but there's no quality control and sometimes the information is not there.
