The biggest ever coaching survey conducted in Irish sport will see the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association join forces to help shape the future development of Gaelic games.
Over the next three weeks coaches at every level of football, hurling and camogie are being encouraged and urged to make their voices heard via the online survey. Details for the survey are available from
Take Gaelic Games Coach Survey 2020
Alternatively, you can visit the GAA Learning website – https://learning.gaa.ie/coachsurvey or email gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
The Gaelic games Coach Survey 2020 is a unique opportunity for coaches to provide an insight into their role, and their needs. It is the first time that such an approach has been taken across the entire Gaelic games community.
Targeting more than 10,000 responses, it makes it one of the most comprehensive coaching studies ever undertaken.
Coaches that complete the survey will be offered the chance to take part in a draw, whereby three respondents will win Coaching Master Class sessions. The Coaching Master Class will involve a coaching session for the winning coaches’ own team, and a coaching workshop for all of the coaches within their Club.
GAA Coach Education Officer, Dr Peter Horgan said:
“Coaches play an extremely important role in Gaelic games. They provide support and guidance for their teams and players, and none more so than in the current suspension of activities. Within the GAA we have tried to support coaches to play their role with resources and educational programmes.
“To further that support, each of the Gaelic games associations have come together and developed a programme of research to investigate coaching practices and coach education. We are interested in feedback from coaches on their coaching experience, their coaching practice and how coaches see coaching into the future. We are also very interested in coaches’ experience of coach education, and what coaches feel are their own learning needs.
“The online survey will be available over the next three weeks, and I would encourage all coaches – regardless of your level of experience or whether you coach at club, school, or county levels – to provide their feedback.
“This will allow us to better understand the coach within Gaelic games and for us to plan for the types of supports that we will be providing into the future. The survey should take approximately 15 minutes to complete and is completely anonymous, and confidential.”
Uachtarán CLG John Horan said: “We are living in a time of unprecedented popularity for Gaelic games. We have record numbers of teams playing and young people attending our camps and enjoying our games.
“With that success comes a responsibility to ensure that coach development is helping us to maximise our potential. We have a network of excellent coaching and games development staff operating across every county, and this helps to support the army of volunteer coaches and mentors who play such an invaluable role at club level.
“Coaches pass on a love of our games. They are instrumental at enabling players perform at their best and this survey is an opportunity to ensure that coach education and development is meeting their needs and continuing to produce the exceptionally talented players that we see across club and county level.”
President of the Camogie Association, Kathleen Woods, welcomed the announcement, saying: “We are delighted to support this important research which will give us a great insight into the world of our wonderful coaches throughout the Gaelic Games family.
“Coaching is a vocation to many volunteers and they provide expertise, support, enthusiasm and guidance to players within our games at all ages and levels of the game, to enable players to enjoy our games as much as possible and to reach their full potential.
“Coaches are a vital part of our Association and I look forward to seeing the results of this great initiative so we can further improve our relationship with this key group of volunteers.”
LGFA President Marie Hickey commented: “We are incredibly proud of the role that coaches play within our organisation, as they hone the skills of players at all levels from underage right through to senior.
“We have a network of coaches dotted across the country and overseas, who are doing some brilliant work on behalf of the LGFA. We are also working tirelessly to encourage more and more of our past players to get involved in coaching, and to take their first steps on our Coach Education pathway.
“It is imperative that our coaches are equipped with the tools which will allow them to develop our sport.
“Coaching is a multi-faceted discipline, with key skills and qualities required to fulfil the role. In that regard, research that explores best practice and education should be welcomed and embraced.
“I would encourage as many of our coaches as possible to engage with the survey, and your feedback will prove invaluable. I look forward to the results that emerge from what is sure to be a substantial body of work.”
The survey is also interested in feedback from any coaches that have dropped out of coaching, to help us understand why they are no longer coaching, and whether there are steps that can put in place to encourage these people back into coaching.
BACKGROUND:
Coach development has become an area that each of the Gaelic games Associations across the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Associations have targeted to work closer together on. Over the last 12 months we have been developing a new Introduction to Coaching Gaelic games award that will operate across all of the codes, and our coach education webinars taking place over the last two months have been hugely successful. In order for us to continue that development, it is important that we are building our programmes on solid information on the role and experiences of coaches within our games.
To help us to do that, we have developed a Gaelic games coach survey for 2020. This survey will look at all of our coaches’ experience, their practice and how coaches see coaching into the future. We are also very interested in coaches’ experience of coach education, and what coaches feel are their own learning needs. Those people that have dropped out of coaching are also part of this survey, to help us understand why they are no longer coaching, and whether there is anything that we can put in place to encourage them back into coaching.
Historically, we have not undertaken this type of task, and it is a mammoth undertaking.
- Why are we doing it this way?
We wanted to build a coach survey that was easy for coaches to feedback into. So, this survey will take place online. It is a simple form that asks for feedback about your coaching practice and your coach education. The survey should take no more than 15 minutes to complete, and is completely anonymous, and confidential.
This survey is across all of the Gaelic games Associations. So, if you are a coach of Camogie, Hurling, Handball, Gaelic football, Ladies Gaelic football, or Rounders your feedback is important. Equally, we are interested in the full breadth of coaches, so it’s not a case of getting one coach from a club to respond, the experience of each coach, regardless of your background or how long you have been coaching is important.
Once we have completed the survey we will be looking to speak to some coaches about the results that we find, so we will organise some focus groups to help us to understand more about what it is that we can do to support coaches into the future. Taking part in those groups is completely voluntary, and again all of the information that any coach will provide is confidential.
As a result of this survey we be able to build a profile of the different types of coaches that we have across Gaelic games and understand their needs. The reports that we produce will be made available to every code and County, and because every response is anonymous, coaches can be as honest as possible. This is important as it will allow us to build a really accurate profile of coaching across Gaelic games.
- How do I access the survey?
The survey is available online, so you can access the survey through GAA.ie, Camogie.ie and LGFA.ie as well as the GAA Learning site – learning.gaa.ie. The survey will also be sent to each club secretary for circulation amongst the coaches within the club. If you have attended a coaching course previously, we will email the survey to you. If any coach wishes to receive the survey directly, they can do so by emailing gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
Details for the survey are available from
Take Gaelic Games Coach Survey 2020
Alternatively, you can visit the GAA Learning website – https://learning.gaa.ie/coachsurvey or email gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
Cork GAA Clubs Draw Results – April 2020
The April draw took place this evening and the winners are as follows
Cork GAA Clubs Draw Results – March 2020
The March draw took place this evening and the winners are as follows
Non-Covid19 Related Club Correspondence
Club Newsletter – Irish language Quarterly ‘Cuaille’
Our Club Newsletter concentrates on issues and information of interest and direct relevance to our wider club network. It is issued monthly to all club secretaries and previous issues can be found here https://www.gaa.ie/downloads/newsletters/
We would love you to share this with your members. So perhaps if you don’t have a members’ mailing list now would be a good time to set one up through your official GAA email address, which would facilitate its distribution and enhance general communication in your club.
More information about how to set up such a list can be found in the attached PDF.
Cuireadh tús, freisin, le hiris nua Ghaeilge CLG, ‘Cuaille’, le gairid a bheidh ar fáil uair sa ráithe.
Bheadh muid buíoch díbh dá mbeadh sibh sásta an iris seo a roinnt le bhur gcuid ball freisin.
(We recently published the GAA’s new Irish language quarterly magazine, Cuaille, for the first time. We would be grateful if you could share this publication with your members, also). https://www.gaa.ie/news/cuaille-iris-ghaeilge-clg-ar-fail-anois/
GAA Coaching and Games
From webinars, skills challenges & virtual training sessions, it’s been a busy few months for the GAA community. Our Games Development Department has been busy providing assistance to coaches, players, teachers and parents to make this difficult time easier.
GAA Learning Website
The GAA Learning platform at learning.gaa.ie is host to a series of Games Development initiatives building on the vast array of resources and courses published in recent years that are now providing a very valuable outlet for Coaches, Players, and Teachers without the opportunity to perform their usual roles in the promotion and playing of our games.
Some of these initiatives include:
-GAA Primary Challenges – Lesson Plans & Physical Activities for Primary School Children
-Coaching Webinars – Live and recorded webinars with leaders in Coaching and Coach Education
– 100’s of activities to Coach Hurling, Football, Handball and Rounders on the GAA Coaching Planner https://learning.gaa.ie/planner/
– Games Development Conference Videos and Presentations from 2014 to 2020 https://learning.gaa.ie/GamesConference2020
– ‘GAA 15’ Injury Prevention Programme – https://learning.gaa.ie/gaa15
– Céim ar Aghaidh Resources for Primary School – https://learning.gaa.ie/ceim
– The Skills of Hurling – https://learning.gaa.ie/hurlingskills
– The Skills of Football – https://learning.gaa.ie/footballskills
– Online Courses and Workshops for Coaches, Players, Referees and Administrators
– LGFA and Camogie Resources and Programmes
#GAAPrimary Challenges
The #GAAPrimary Challenges is a series of learning & physical activities for children in Primary School. During these particularly challenging times for families, the #GAAPrimary Challenges are designed to help teachers and parents to work on the cross-curricular lesson plans with children to meet their learning needs. Gaelic games-themed lessons are across all curriculum subjects and are for children at every class level, based on the GAA Céim ar Aghaidh/Step Ahead resource. For some fresh air and physical exercise, inter-county stars set Skill Challenges weekly that can be done at or near your home. There are also fun competitions and prizes to be won on the @GAAlearning twitter page. Primary teachers are encouraged to share lesson plans, learning material and ideas by email to gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie or on social media using #GAAPrimary.
https://youtu.be/5lOTk69ctQc
Webinar Series
To help coaches through this difficult period, the GAA, an Cumann Camogaíochta & the LGFA have created a series of Coach Development Webinar sessions taking place on Tuesdays & Thursday at 7.30pm. Information on future sessions can be access through our twitter ‘@GAAlearning’ and past sessions can be viewed on our Youtube Page ‘GAALearning’
National Hurling Development Manager, Martin Fogarty, is hosting Hurling specific webinars every Monday on various aspects of the game and how best to coach it. For more details, visit out twitter @GAALearning
Coach Survey
The Coach Survey was launched this week with the GAA, LGFA & Camogie Association joining forces to help shape the future development of Gaelic games. The aim of the survey is to get to know more about coaches involvement, their role, experiences and how they envisage their coaching future. The form can be accessed through the link below. If you have any queries about the survey, you can email gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=hrxFrNSvpUKfwz6H4bd_zq1V2frnb-FJnS9jn6gmgFNUNlFLTjIxWThBTEpBSzFVUTVOQjk3RUhXQy4u
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Az-95HFEa8
For more information on any of these resources, please see free to email us at ‘gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie’ visit our website ‘https://learning.gaa.ie/’ or twitter page @GAALearning
Pitch Advice
Our pitches have seldom been quieter than they have been for the last two and a half months. However, when we do return, it’s likely they will be in high demand by various club teams.
Many clubs have been maintaining their playing facilities over the course of the pandemic.
Our National Pitch Maintenance Working Group have prepared a document (see attached) to assist clubs in maintaining their pitches and can be contacted at the following email address with any queries: nationalpitchmaintenanceworkgroup@gaa.ie
Please share this document with those who look after your playing facilities.
Time Capsule
Amid all the stress and strain and sadness of these uncertain days there is also the realisation that these are historic times. In that vein, the GAA History Committee is encouraging clubs and counties to actively record the experience of clubs during this pandemic – for the benefit of future generations to review and learn from.
As Colin Regan, the GAA Community Manager, said: “When our games stopped, our people didn’t.” This is an opportunity to record and time capsule the work done by the GAA in our communities. Get thinking about those in your club who might be interested in documenting memories from this time for future members and keep an eye out for more on this in the time ahead.
Grassroots Club Stories Project
In the coming weeks, the GAA in association with Ballpoint Press Ltd, will launch a project to try and capture engaging and amusing stories from around our wider club network, both at home and abroad.
It is planned to publish the stand-out stories that are collected in a new book and all stories recorded will be added to the GAA archive at Croke Park.
The intention is to capture part of our shared folklore through stories that may be well known in given localities but not to wider audiences.
Look out for more information in the coming weeks.
Fundraising
Many of our units will face challenges in the coming months after the long closure. A large number of our clubs have been involved in incredible fundraising initiatives since the outbreak of the pandemic built around sporting endeavours, including long distance team cycling and running.
Might some of these same initiatives be re-purposed by members to raise funds for our clubs?
Other opportunities which will present themselves in the weeks ahead should include the return of our Club Lottos and the annual GAA National Club Draw.
GAANOW
We may not have a schedule of live games to cover, but we have been working to bring our members and supporters the best of our games from bygone years. Every week we are showing a whole host of full games and highlights from the GAANOW archive.
From County Glory Days to All-Ireland Finals to Hall of Fame highlights, all of these videos can be shared across your Club’s social media accounts.
GAA.ie/Clubs – the GAA’s new Club Dashboard
Club officers and administrators no longer need to remember different URLs for membership, insurance, transfers, etc – you’ll now find everything on the GAA Club Dashboard.
The Club Dashboard allows you to navigate to the site or portal you need in one click.
It will also post reminders and important notifications so that you don’t miss a deadline or update.
You can create your own ‘favourites’ section with the pages you visit most.
GAA.ie/Clubs is fully functional on desktop and mobile.
Activities at Home
For both younger and older kids, we’re creating lots to keep everyone occupied. From weekly activity packs for juvenile members, to information on organising online sessions and learning-focused Primary School activities, the Activities at Home section of GAA has lots available for you to share with your members. Visit the site here
Organising Online Exercise and Coaching Sessions
The temporary postponement of our games and training sessions has undoubtedly impacted on many of us including our underage teams and the children and young people in our clubs, i.e. those under 18 years of age and their families.
It is however always gratifying to hear of coaches and clubs who have recently contacted us seeking permission during these restricted times to deliver live online exercise and coaching sessions for our underage teams. With the correct safety guidance and good practices in place, we wish to support such initiatives.
In the downloads section of this page you will find protocols around organising these sessions, outlining the safeguards that must be adhered to when staging this type of activity and a guide to using ‘Microsoft Teams’, an online collaboration tool which is available to holders of official GAA email addresses and can be used to organise club activities with members.
For the safety of all of our members, please ensure you do not organise or participate in sessions that do not follow the GAA’s guidance on this area. For more visit GAA.ie here
Office 365 Training Contact Lists_compressed
PitchmaintNEW-compressed
Launch of landmark Gaelic games coaching survey
The biggest ever coaching survey conducted in Irish sport will see the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association join forces to help shape the future development of Gaelic games.
Over the next three weeks coaches at every level of football, hurling and camogie are being encouraged and urged to make their voices heard via the online survey. Details for the survey are available from
Take Gaelic Games Coach Survey 2020
Alternatively, you can visit the GAA Learning website – https://learning.gaa.ie/coachsurvey or email gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
The Gaelic games Coach Survey 2020 is a unique opportunity for coaches to provide an insight into their role, and their needs. It is the first time that such an approach has been taken across the entire Gaelic games community.
Targeting more than 10,000 responses, it makes it one of the most comprehensive coaching studies ever undertaken.
Coaches that complete the survey will be offered the chance to take part in a draw, whereby three respondents will win Coaching Master Class sessions. The Coaching Master Class will involve a coaching session for the winning coaches’ own team, and a coaching workshop for all of the coaches within their Club.
GAA Coach Education Officer, Dr Peter Horgan said:
“Coaches play an extremely important role in Gaelic games. They provide support and guidance for their teams and players, and none more so than in the current suspension of activities. Within the GAA we have tried to support coaches to play their role with resources and educational programmes.
“To further that support, each of the Gaelic games associations have come together and developed a programme of research to investigate coaching practices and coach education. We are interested in feedback from coaches on their coaching experience, their coaching practice and how coaches see coaching into the future. We are also very interested in coaches’ experience of coach education, and what coaches feel are their own learning needs.
“The online survey will be available over the next three weeks, and I would encourage all coaches – regardless of your level of experience or whether you coach at club, school, or county levels – to provide their feedback.
“This will allow us to better understand the coach within Gaelic games and for us to plan for the types of supports that we will be providing into the future. The survey should take approximately 15 minutes to complete and is completely anonymous, and confidential.”
Uachtarán CLG John Horan said: “We are living in a time of unprecedented popularity for Gaelic games. We have record numbers of teams playing and young people attending our camps and enjoying our games.
“With that success comes a responsibility to ensure that coach development is helping us to maximise our potential. We have a network of excellent coaching and games development staff operating across every county, and this helps to support the army of volunteer coaches and mentors who play such an invaluable role at club level.
“Coaches pass on a love of our games. They are instrumental at enabling players perform at their best and this survey is an opportunity to ensure that coach education and development is meeting their needs and continuing to produce the exceptionally talented players that we see across club and county level.”
President of the Camogie Association, Kathleen Woods, welcomed the announcement, saying: “We are delighted to support this important research which will give us a great insight into the world of our wonderful coaches throughout the Gaelic Games family.
“Coaching is a vocation to many volunteers and they provide expertise, support, enthusiasm and guidance to players within our games at all ages and levels of the game, to enable players to enjoy our games as much as possible and to reach their full potential.
“Coaches are a vital part of our Association and I look forward to seeing the results of this great initiative so we can further improve our relationship with this key group of volunteers.”
LGFA President Marie Hickey commented: “We are incredibly proud of the role that coaches play within our organisation, as they hone the skills of players at all levels from underage right through to senior.
“We have a network of coaches dotted across the country and overseas, who are doing some brilliant work on behalf of the LGFA. We are also working tirelessly to encourage more and more of our past players to get involved in coaching, and to take their first steps on our Coach Education pathway.
“It is imperative that our coaches are equipped with the tools which will allow them to develop our sport.
“Coaching is a multi-faceted discipline, with key skills and qualities required to fulfil the role. In that regard, research that explores best practice and education should be welcomed and embraced.
“I would encourage as many of our coaches as possible to engage with the survey, and your feedback will prove invaluable. I look forward to the results that emerge from what is sure to be a substantial body of work.”
The survey is also interested in feedback from any coaches that have dropped out of coaching, to help us understand why they are no longer coaching, and whether there are steps that can put in place to encourage these people back into coaching.
BACKGROUND:
Coach development has become an area that each of the Gaelic games Associations across the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Associations have targeted to work closer together on. Over the last 12 months we have been developing a new Introduction to Coaching Gaelic games award that will operate across all of the codes, and our coach education webinars taking place over the last two months have been hugely successful. In order for us to continue that development, it is important that we are building our programmes on solid information on the role and experiences of coaches within our games.
To help us to do that, we have developed a Gaelic games coach survey for 2020. This survey will look at all of our coaches’ experience, their practice and how coaches see coaching into the future. We are also very interested in coaches’ experience of coach education, and what coaches feel are their own learning needs. Those people that have dropped out of coaching are also part of this survey, to help us understand why they are no longer coaching, and whether there is anything that we can put in place to encourage them back into coaching.
Historically, we have not undertaken this type of task, and it is a mammoth undertaking.
We wanted to build a coach survey that was easy for coaches to feedback into. So, this survey will take place online. It is a simple form that asks for feedback about your coaching practice and your coach education. The survey should take no more than 15 minutes to complete, and is completely anonymous, and confidential.
This survey is across all of the Gaelic games Associations. So, if you are a coach of Camogie, Hurling, Handball, Gaelic football, Ladies Gaelic football, or Rounders your feedback is important. Equally, we are interested in the full breadth of coaches, so it’s not a case of getting one coach from a club to respond, the experience of each coach, regardless of your background or how long you have been coaching is important.
Once we have completed the survey we will be looking to speak to some coaches about the results that we find, so we will organise some focus groups to help us to understand more about what it is that we can do to support coaches into the future. Taking part in those groups is completely voluntary, and again all of the information that any coach will provide is confidential.
As a result of this survey we be able to build a profile of the different types of coaches that we have across Gaelic games and understand their needs. The reports that we produce will be made available to every code and County, and because every response is anonymous, coaches can be as honest as possible. This is important as it will allow us to build a really accurate profile of coaching across Gaelic games.
The survey is available online, so you can access the survey through GAA.ie, Camogie.ie and LGFA.ie as well as the GAA Learning site – learning.gaa.ie. The survey will also be sent to each club secretary for circulation amongst the coaches within the club. If you have attended a coaching course previously, we will email the survey to you. If any coach wishes to receive the survey directly, they can do so by emailing gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
Details for the survey are available from
Take Gaelic Games Coach Survey 2020
Alternatively, you can visit the GAA Learning website – https://learning.gaa.ie/coachsurvey or email gamesdevelopment@gaa.ie
Week of webinars
Slaughtneil GAA – An Insight
https://learning.gaa.ie/gaacoachwebinar2020
Importance of Physical Literacy in Children with Dr Stephen Behan