As a new coach, it may be up to you to plan sessions for your group. Even if you are just assisting or using someone else’s planning, your group will benefit much more from a session if you understand why you are developing a certain skill or tactic and are able to change and adapt the planning if necessary.

For helping to plan age-appropriate sessions, please see our Player Development Framework for guidance.

Plan. Do. Review.

This is the name given to a basic but important coaching approach. This model is cyclical, using information from one session to inform planning of the next session:

This model ensures constant improvement from your group because you are using observations about their development to help you plan the next session e.g. You are delivering a session on double counters, and you notice your group not really understanding what a double counter should look like. You might go away and plan another session to consolidate their understanding of what it is and how to call the play. Alternatively, you notice that the group understands what one should look like so you advance their skills by developing their timing of throws on a double counter, or movement and blocking so they can better survive attacks before they execute the double counter.

To do this well, coaches need to remain flexible throughout a season and constantly assess their groups. Were new concepts well received? Were there any strengths or weaknesses in technique? Did some pick it up faster than others (and how can you help the others catch up?). If often helps coaches new to the ‘Plan, Do, Review’ model to keep flexibility in their planning by thinking about where you want your players to be at the end of a series of sessions, and work backwards from there rather than planning every single development step and session at the start of the season.

Aims & Objectives

The best sessions have clear goals and outcomes. Without this, sessions can lack direction for both the coach and players. Even if you are just planning a ‘fun’, ‘inclusive’ or ‘social’ session, you should use these goals to influence the activities you plan. Think about where you want your players to be at the end of the session, and build backwards from there.

• Focus on enjoyment and making people feel included
• Focus on a more general skill or tactic
• Focus on aspects of a specific skill
• Focus on aspects of a specific tactic

The WDBF Player Development Framework provides guidance on what is age-appropriate (or stage-appropriate) to assist your planning.

Session Planning & Preparation

Equipment & Space Constraints

Ensure you have enough items and that items are suitable for dodgeball usage before planning a session:

• It would really limit your session if you’d planned for everyone to have a balls to practice throwing and blocking in pairs, but you only have 5 balls to be shared amongst a group of 20.
• Make sure equipment is safe for use, such as using shatter-proof objects as targets if planning a throwing accuracy game.

Some common training equipment is laid out in the game below:

Similarly, know how much space you have to work with so you can plan sessions accordingly. If you don’t have room for 2 full courts, you may need to be creative with your groupings or plan to play big games on one court to include everyone.

Planning Activities

You know what skill you want to focus on. But where do you go from there? Sessions are generally made up of aspects of the following:

Preparing The Session

Ideally, you will arrive early in order to have time to set up your session. This includes:

• Retrieving stored equipment
• Conducting safety checks on the space and removing hazards (e.g., moving benches or seating out of the way)
• Marking out your space (e.g., the courts)
• Retrieving the session register & participant information (e.g., medical information, emergency contact information, pick-up information)
• Preparing spectator spaces

Sometimes, you will need to adapt your plan. Imagine you had planned to mark down official courts using marking tape, but the tape has gone missing from your club’s equipment store – instead you might need to use cones to mark a court instead.

Dodgeball is played in a range of environments – whilst it is often played indoors in many countries, it is also common to play outdoors in warmer climates. This means that consideration needs to be given to weather conditions. For instance, how rain would affect an outdoor surface, and how this may affect footwear or how you plan sessions where short, sharp changes of direction are required on a suddenly slippery floor. Read below for more information on how you may adapt a session plan…

Adapting The Plan

Adapting Activities

Once the session starts, it is important to understand the need to be flexible and adapt the session plan in order to get the best outcome for your participants. This might mean:

• Adjusting timings: Spending more time working on a specific skill because the players need additional practice to become proficient, or spending less time on an activity and moving into matches sooner.
• Adjusting tasks: Altering tasks because the players do not understand them or are finding them too easy/challenging.
• Adjusting groupings: If your planned groupings don’t work, whether due to absence or ability/behaviour-related factors, you may need to adjust groupings on the fly.

One of the strengths of dodgeball is how easy it is to adapt the game and activities within. This should be done to encourage the use (and therefore development of) specific skills of tactics as linked to your session focus. Possible examples of how dodgeball can be adapted to focus on certain skills include:

Adapting Dodgeball Games

One of the strengths of dodgeball is how easy it is to adapt the game. This should be done to encourage the use (and therefore development of) specific skills of tactics as linked to your session focus. Here are some examples of how dodgeball can be adapted to focus on certain skills:

For more examples, you can see our Dodge Five Game On resources.