Inclusive coaching

Inclusion is about having the ‘opportunity to join in’ with what they want to and not what someone else thinks they should do. (Barnard, Prior & Potter, 2000) Ainscow, Booth & Dyson,(2006) further stated that inclusion is fundamentally about a specification of someone’s values and how they can be put into place, meaning that everyone’s opinion and perspective must be considered. Inclusion is important as if everyone is included within the sports session then there will be a higher chance of more enjoyment meaning a higher number of participation.

Black & Williamson (2011) identified the inclusion spectrum as a unique tool for thinking about how to teach all students, including those with severe disabilities. Continuously, the spectrum can be a guide to show teachers how to teach all different types of individuals in various different ways. The spectrum has five mains areas, which provide an optimum environment for learning. The five areas are, open, modified, parallel, separate and disability sport, with the STEP model being used as an adaptation tool.

Open activity can be an activity everyone can get involved with. This may be something as simple as tag, everyone can join in with this even a disabled person, for example is a student is visually impaired you are only able to tag them from the side they can see out of therefore they can still join in with everyone else.

Modified activity can be where everyone again does the same task however there are individual modifications to the most able students. For example, this may be for a passing drill in football and the more able students have to make a first time pass where’s others are allowed to take touches. When modifying, thought should be given to rule and task modification, in line with skill development. (Lieberman & Houston-Wilson, 2018) This is showing that you must consider their ability in comparison with the modification put in place and not make it so hard they lose interest.

Parallel activities can be grouping up participants with similar ability levels but everyone does the same task. Fo example, everyone may play a game of steal the treasure but the more able students may be grouped with as well as the less able students. This will be beneficial as  the less able students will become more engaged as they will be involved more rather than all the higher ability students not letting them have a chance to get involved.

Separate activities are where individuals or groups do a purposefully planned different activity. For example, this may be a striker doing their own shooting session whilst the other players are doing a full training session. Or if a students is struggling with a certain skill thy may go on their own or in a small group to focus on that skill and improve on it so they can join back in effectively.

Disability sport activities are activities that a designed to suit participants with a disability. For example, bowls can be adapted to aid disability participants. This can be done by adding in a ramp for participants to roll the ball down to make it inclusive for all participants. Continuously, all participants must sit down to make it fair for the people in a wheelchair to get involved too.

The inclusion spectrum affords many opportunities for all students to interact with peers, to develop positive peer relationships and get involved in everywhere they can. (Seymour, Reid & Bloom 2009) This will aid mass participation within sport no matter the participant.

The STEP model is part of the inclusion spectrum and is an adaptation tool to aid inclusion. The figure above shows the STEP model and the adaptations in place to make the football session easier or harder in various different ways.

This model has helped me within my coaching as it provides different ways to overcome problems within a session such as; if participants are finding it to easy or to hard it will provide adaptations for these circumstances.

I believe within my coaching I am working towards trying to be more of an inclusive coach as I feel this will benefit my participants massively as they will all feel involved and they will gain the most out of the session and they will enjoy it which the the most important thing when you are at a young age and this leads to them continuously turning up each week.

During a session it can sometimes be difficult to adapt the session on the spot where as if you have previously planned any necessary adaptations it will make the session run a lot smoother and the session wont have to be stopped.

Reference list

Ainscow, M., Booth, T., & Dyson, A. (2006). Improving schools, developing inclusion. Routledge.

Barnard, J., Prior, A, & Potter, D. (2000) Inclusion and autism: is it working? London: The National Autistic Society

Black, K., & Stevenson, P. (2011). The inclusion spectrum. Australia: Theinclusionclub.com

Black, K., & Williamson, D. (2011). Designing inclusive physical activity games. In A. Cereijo Roibas, W. Stamatakis, & K. Black (Eds.), Design for sport (pp. 199–230). Surrey, UK: Gower.

Lieberman, L. J., & Houston-Wilson, C. (2018). Strategies for inclusion: A handbook for physical educators (3rd ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Seymour, H., Reid, G., & Bloom, G. (2009). Friendship in inclusive physical education. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 26, 201–219.