Junior Tour Reports
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I wish I could lay my hands on my son's Laganlia report, It's been consigned somewhere and I'm not really surprised as it nearly reduced him to tears. It was very negative you had to read between the lines to find anything positive let alone constructive. Halden however was a much better structured report. After Laganlia it seemed that the idea was to destroy any confidence the athletes had.
Diets and fitness are no good if you can't read the map.
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HOCOLITE - addict
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Kitch>>The main thing is
there is a very delicate line to be trod. Coaches need to be careful to convey a positive message and not to come across as critical or make the subject feel they are failing in some way. It is very very easy for comments to be misconstrued.
Correct as usual Kitch
As I said before I can't comment on the Scottish tours. But i'm sure that those that went to Halden/Uppsalla this year, will have had some critisism. From my point of view critisism is the only way to improve -by learning from your mistakes and doing something about it. As i've said before by the time juniors get to Halden -they should have the intelligence to recognise this.
I wish I had someone to shadow me round every training event I do and then tell me where I'm going wrong! Its very easy to spot other peoples mistakes -but very difficult to spot your own. A coach is a valuable commodity.
Tetley and its Golden Farce.
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Nails - diehard
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As I said before I can't comment on the Scottish tours. But i'm sure that those that went to Halden/Uppsalla this year, will have had some critisism. From my point of view critisism is the only way to improve -by learning from your mistakes and doing something about it. As i've said before by the time juniors get to Halden -they should have the intelligence to recognise this.
I wish I had someone to shadow me round every training event I do and then tell me where I'm going wrong! Its very easy to spot other peoples mistakes -but very difficult to spot your own. A coach is a valuable commodity.
dont think there was really any issue with critisism in the glemmore, halden or uppsala as the 3 i've seen (1 from each) all seemed constuctive and have def given me goals... maybe just that people expected more from them?
but as i've said and most people have said...the lagganlia ones dont seem to be that constuctive..the one i've read said in the same paragraph that they were one of the slowest over terrainbut then also said they ran too fast and needed to slow down
how should this be taken? and is being told they were one of the slowest really needed..i was told a few times on tour to work on what i needed rather than compare to other orienteers...
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Jene - addict
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Jene wrote:
were one of the slowest over terrainbut then also said they ran too fast and needed to slow down
how should this be taken? .
It's quite possible the individual is not very efficient at terrain running & could spend sometime on his/her technique on terrain running.... similarly off the terrain... paths, tracks, rides, roads etc etc it could be a situation where him/her is speeding up on easier running terrain types and out running their orienteering ability & their physical ability throughout the course.
- gross2006
or it could mean that their terrain running was bad, but that their navigation was even worse...
seriously, I'd interpret it as meaning that the person in question was a reasonably talented runner, but that they were slowed down disproportionally through rough terrain (i.e. good x-country runner, not quite so quick through a scottish forest), and that when they could get to run fast they were concentrating on doing just that rather than on the navigation and therefore making mistakes/letting small mistakes become big mistakes.
Recommendations would therefore be to practice running through terrain (not just running for training on paths/parks) and when O-ing (or at least O-training) to not try to run too hard, but maximum (say) 75% and to practice stopping and looking at the map as soon as they were unsure as to exactly where they were or as to what they should see/do next. Once they'd got into that habit then slowly increase running effort/start doing the stop/check map on the move rather than a literal stop...
seriously, I'd interpret it as meaning that the person in question was a reasonably talented runner, but that they were slowed down disproportionally through rough terrain (i.e. good x-country runner, not quite so quick through a scottish forest), and that when they could get to run fast they were concentrating on doing just that rather than on the navigation and therefore making mistakes/letting small mistakes become big mistakes.
Recommendations would therefore be to practice running through terrain (not just running for training on paths/parks) and when O-ing (or at least O-training) to not try to run too hard, but maximum (say) 75% and to practice stopping and looking at the map as soon as they were unsure as to exactly where they were or as to what they should see/do next. Once they'd got into that habit then slowly increase running effort/start doing the stop/check map on the move rather than a literal stop...
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Ed - diehard
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Coming to this thread late, this has proved quite a read! Obviously it's a bit one-sided, as the bulk of the comment has come from those on the receiving end, but what I've read has quite horrified me. If a child of mine got a report that left them in tears, or not wanting to orienteer again, I'd have the coaching team's guts for garters (you want to give negative criticism? So do I!).
The word criticism is usually used in the negative sense. It is not a negative word. To critique someone's performance is to look at strengths and weaknesses. A report should focus on the strengths, really look at what a youngster did well (the classic case of if you got one control badly wrong, you may well have got all the others right, so what were you doing right?) and use that as a model for further development. It should then look at areas of improvement, making suggestion as to what the individual could do to tackle them.
When writing end of year reports at school (and indeed for all parent consultations), we have a policy that there should be NO surprises. If a child has been left in tears or gutted when they thought they'd had a good tour, that, aside from the poor report writing skills, represents a failure of the coaching team during the week.
I've just had a day long session on a RoSPA course on minibus driving (something we have to do to drive the school minibus). My driving is NOT perfect (I wish!), but not once during the day was my driving negatively criticised. Instead, I was asked a series of questions, or to do something (e.g. commentate on what I was observing). Based on that, the instructor made suggestions about what I could try out, or we discussed the issues (e.g. why are there so many more deaths on rural than urban roads? Why so many on bends? What are the physics of what happens on a bend? What does that imply for our driving?). It was one of the most enjoyable days driving I've had in ages, even though I was being assessed throughout. Why? Because the coaching technique was spot on. That extended to the end of day report to my school, which was was discussed with and shown to me, and where we agreed my strengths and what I needed to work on to improve my driving.
That's what coaching is about (and something I've had to relearn on occasions, I do confess!)
The word criticism is usually used in the negative sense. It is not a negative word. To critique someone's performance is to look at strengths and weaknesses. A report should focus on the strengths, really look at what a youngster did well (the classic case of if you got one control badly wrong, you may well have got all the others right, so what were you doing right?) and use that as a model for further development. It should then look at areas of improvement, making suggestion as to what the individual could do to tackle them.
When writing end of year reports at school (and indeed for all parent consultations), we have a policy that there should be NO surprises. If a child has been left in tears or gutted when they thought they'd had a good tour, that, aside from the poor report writing skills, represents a failure of the coaching team during the week.
I've just had a day long session on a RoSPA course on minibus driving (something we have to do to drive the school minibus). My driving is NOT perfect (I wish!), but not once during the day was my driving negatively criticised. Instead, I was asked a series of questions, or to do something (e.g. commentate on what I was observing). Based on that, the instructor made suggestions about what I could try out, or we discussed the issues (e.g. why are there so many more deaths on rural than urban roads? Why so many on bends? What are the physics of what happens on a bend? What does that imply for our driving?). It was one of the most enjoyable days driving I've had in ages, even though I was being assessed throughout. Why? Because the coaching technique was spot on. That extended to the end of day report to my school, which was was discussed with and shown to me, and where we agreed my strengths and what I needed to work on to improve my driving.
That's what coaching is about (and something I've had to relearn on occasions, I do confess!)
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awk - god
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Nails wrote: From my point of view critisism is the only way to improve -by learning from your mistakes and doing something about it. As i've said before by the time juniors get to Halden -they should have the intelligence to recognise this. I wish I had someone to shadow me round every training event I do and then tell me where I'm going wrong! Its very easy to spot other peoples mistakes -but very difficult to spot your own. A coach is a valuable commodity.
The problem with focusing on what you are doing wrong all the time, means you can so easily ignore what you are doing right. Negative criticism may work for you individually - fine. But for a lot of people, it is all too often destructive, as the good stuff isn't reinforced, and the focus is 'I've got to get the bad stuff right'. Even when learning from mistakes, learning from the good stuff is often more effective - "you did this section so well, what were you doing there that you weren't doing here where you lost time".
the one i've read said in the same paragraph that they were one of the slowest over terrainbut then also said they ran too fast and needed to slow down
Ouch - classic mistake - discussing relative performance against others (especially if it's a fast year group!). To describe somebody as 'one of the slowest over terrain' is a no-no especially when coaching at this stage. Maybe talk about base speed through terrain as being an area that should be worked on (and how it could be improved, as Ed suggests), maybe setting a target (relative to the child), bearing in mind they may simply be naturally a slow runner and are never going to be amongst the fastest. Obviously pace judgement looks as if it needs work as well, but maybe they are going too fast relatively because they are already all too aware of their natural lack of speed?
All very easy to say without the full report and without knowing the individual!
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awk - god
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awk wrote:Even when learning from mistakes, learning from the good stuff is often more effective - "you did this section so well, what were you doing there that you weren't doing here where you lost time".
Interesting statement, but it doesn't necessarily apply to all situations. With the many skills in orienteering to master, you may need to apply something else at that particular control in addition to what you've been using for the rest of the course. Then it's a case of "Yes, you have been orienteering well but this control needed such technique". This highlights something that may need further training as well as showing what you've been doing well.
You need to look at both what's going right and what needs improving. And self-analysis plays as an important a role as a tour/coach - yes a second opinion is good to have, but you're limited as to when you can receive it. What do you do for the rest of the year?
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distracted - addict
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Nails wrote:
From my point of view critisism is the only way to improve -by learning from your mistakes and doing something about it. As i've said before by the time juniors get to Halden -they should have the intelligence to recognise this. I wish I had someone to shadow me round every training event I do and then tell me where I'm going wrong! Its very easy to spot other peoples mistakes -but very difficult to spot your own. A coach is a valuable commodity.
Awk wrote:
The problem with focusing on what you are doing wrong all the time, means you can so easily ignore what you are doing right. Negative criticism may work for you individually - fine. But for a lot of people, it is all too often destructive, as the good stuff isn't reinforced, and the focus is 'I've got to get the bad stuff right'. Even when learning from mistakes, learning from the good stuff is often more effective - "you did this section so well, what were you doing there that you weren't doing here where you lost time".
Again awk you have missed my point. I've reiterated it a number of times. I have only been talking about Halden and Uppsalla tours.
And before you say it doesn't work for everyone (again I'll stress that i'm talking about halden and uppsalla and not the junior tours) it does as far as my experience goes. The respective juniors that i've coached (no names mentioned) lapped this method up -they 'want'' to know what they are doing wrong -afterall they are on the tour because they are good orienteers and have a 'want' to improve.. (And i'll say it again i'm talking about halden and uppsalla tours not the scottish junior ones!) Yes I agree that sometimes you need to focus on what you are doing right -but that is not what this whole thread is about -this is about tour reports and how they should be interpreted.
Tetley and its Golden Farce.
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Nails - diehard
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There's a fine line to tread on this one. As a coach on Lagganlia three years ago we were always positive with the Juniors during the week, but if things aren't working in a Scottish forest, they need to be told why. There are a lot of Juniors to write reports for on Lagganlia and it's no easy task. The ones I saw from the one I coached wer fine though - picking out plenty of positive bits amongst the negative. It's just the negatives that stick in people's brains. Most of the reports quoted are single lines saying running speed was not as fast - what about the rest of the report?
I think it is possible for reports to be overly complimentary. One of the girls we coach (and I'm sure she won't mind me saying) had a wonderfully complimentary report from a tour about her great mental attitude, running speed, strength and commitment, all of which I know I true ( I woudln't coach her otherwise!), but there was no technical criticism at all, despite the fact that she admitted she'd fallen apart technically on the tour, and looking through her maps with her afterwards this certainly seemed to be the case. It would've been useful to have some hints from the coaches in the forest about why they thought this was happening, rather than trying to piece it together after the tour.
It's all a balance, which a million people have already said in this thread. If there is negative there, then find yourself a coach, talk to them about how to do something about it, and get out there and prove otherwise! Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself.
I think it is possible for reports to be overly complimentary. One of the girls we coach (and I'm sure she won't mind me saying) had a wonderfully complimentary report from a tour about her great mental attitude, running speed, strength and commitment, all of which I know I true ( I woudln't coach her otherwise!), but there was no technical criticism at all, despite the fact that she admitted she'd fallen apart technically on the tour, and looking through her maps with her afterwards this certainly seemed to be the case. It would've been useful to have some hints from the coaches in the forest about why they thought this was happening, rather than trying to piece it together after the tour.
It's all a balance, which a million people have already said in this thread. If there is negative there, then find yourself a coach, talk to them about how to do something about it, and get out there and prove otherwise! Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself.
Will? We've got proper fire now!
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Becks - god
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A lot of this depends on what you are trying to achieve on the tour.
If the aim is to identify talent and encourage it, and by implication, identify those who are not talented and discourage them from having unreasonable aspirations, then a brutally honest appraisal is a reasonable thing to do, though how it is phrased and delivered needs to be very skillful indeed and participants should know beforehand that this is what is going to happen. The model would be like selection for the SAS - it's going to be horrible but you know what you are letting yourself in for.
If the aim is development of all participants, then you need to be offering every one of them some real recognition of the development they have achieved on the tour, and clear advice about how to go on developing after the tour. This is neither praise nor negative criticism, but can be a "factual" account, which is very much less threatening and much more useful. To be most useful this needs to be reasonably well structured - like a list of ten or so skills or techniques worked on over the tour and "objective" feedback based on observation with advice on what to do on each one. e.g. Navigating using contours: You were fast and accurate at recognising large features of the terrain but less confident and accurate at the detail (some examples of what made the coach think this). To develop further you should ...
Moreover, being clear about the specific aims will help planning the activities and if you know what form the summary feedback will take, it keeps the coaches and participants more closely focused during the tour. It is very good practice to begin some learning saying specifically "this is what we are trying to learn" and ending by saying "this is what we learnt" and inviting the learners to say what they learnt personally.
Could go on all day but will stop now.
If the aim is to identify talent and encourage it, and by implication, identify those who are not talented and discourage them from having unreasonable aspirations, then a brutally honest appraisal is a reasonable thing to do, though how it is phrased and delivered needs to be very skillful indeed and participants should know beforehand that this is what is going to happen. The model would be like selection for the SAS - it's going to be horrible but you know what you are letting yourself in for.
If the aim is development of all participants, then you need to be offering every one of them some real recognition of the development they have achieved on the tour, and clear advice about how to go on developing after the tour. This is neither praise nor negative criticism, but can be a "factual" account, which is very much less threatening and much more useful. To be most useful this needs to be reasonably well structured - like a list of ten or so skills or techniques worked on over the tour and "objective" feedback based on observation with advice on what to do on each one. e.g. Navigating using contours: You were fast and accurate at recognising large features of the terrain but less confident and accurate at the detail (some examples of what made the coach think this). To develop further you should ...
Moreover, being clear about the specific aims will help planning the activities and if you know what form the summary feedback will take, it keeps the coaches and participants more closely focused during the tour. It is very good practice to begin some learning saying specifically "this is what we are trying to learn" and ending by saying "this is what we learnt" and inviting the learners to say what they learnt personally.
Could go on all day but will stop now.
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chrisecurtis - red
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Chris your second description is exactly what I would expect to happen with Laganlia reports, as the numbers are being cut back but all need to have fair but positive feedback so they continue to a) enjoy the sport b)aspire to succeed in the sport. I strongly believe that at 13 years all kids need to have positive encouragement, there is always something that they can do. They should also be told where they can/need to improve but this need not be negative.
Diets and fitness are no good if you can't read the map.
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HOCOLITE - addict
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Again awk you have missed my point. I've reiterated it a number of times. I have only been talking about Halden and Uppsalla tours.
And before you say it doesn't work for everyone (again I'll stress that i'm talking about halden and uppsalla and not the junior tours) it does as far as my experience goes.
I don't think I did (miss your point). My experience of older tours doesn't totally accord with yours.
My contention is that even with those who can take the focus on mistakes (and I agree that most can), it is often not the most effective way of coaching.
Great post Chris - I do agree that what you suggest can be highly effective.
Distracted - I do agree that what you highlight doesn't necessarily apply in all situations (I did say "often" not "always"!) - again I agree with the style in which you couch things. That's the critical issue here.
Becks - Yes I agree again, a report can be too complimentary. No point in writing one if you don't make recommendations for improvements (particularly how!). The fact that the "negatives" can stay in the mind even when strongly diluted by "positives" show just how important it is that they are expressed supportively (and how easily we focus on them to the exclusion of other comments). I do speak from the bitter experience of having got it wrong and seen the effect it can cause, so I'm not pretending it's easy, or that I get it necessarily right. Having to write almost 50 tightly lined A4 pages of reports last term was a major learning exercise on that front!
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awk - god
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It's just the negatives that stick in people's brains. Most of the reports quoted are single lines saying running speed was not as fast - what about the rest of the report?
I think it is possible for reports to be overly complimentary.
Having said that, from the same report that also said 'one of the slowest' etc, it seemed to be the only positive comment from the whole report was that the child was 'cheerful' which in my opinion, is not much consolation to being told that the 'skills of orienteering to not come naturally' to them.
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bexter - orange
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