“IT'S MORE THAN JUST IMPROVING CHILDREN'S FOOTBALL SKILLS – FA SKILLS IS ALL ABOUT GIVING CHILDREN THE CONFIDENCE TO REACH THEIR POTENTIAL.”

Developing Fitness for Life through Football Skills

The FA Skills and Sport England aspire to offer every adult and child in England opportunities to get active and lead a healthier lifestyle. The FA Skills Programme will aim to deliver 1.2m coaching opportunities per year, giving boys and girls aged between 5 and 11 in 44 counties across the country the chance to keep fit and healthy through football.

They also want to encourage parents of 5-11 year olds to get their kids active at home by helping them to practice their football skills and playing the game together.

Here are some of their hints and tips for parents:

• If your child is aged 5-11, they should be using size 3 or 4 footballs.
• Encourage them to be creative and try new ideas. Making mistakes helps children improve – we learn through succeeding and failing.
• Ask your child open-ended questions to help them understand the problem and get better. For example: “What made you shoot/pass then? What else could you have done?”
• Most importantly, to get your kids active from an early age, you have to get active too. The best thing you can do is get out there and give it a go.

If you want to find out more about playing football go to-http://faskills.thefa.com/

We will be posting some short videos demonstrating football skills in the New Year.