P.A.I.D. – Principles of Great tennis activity

As a KNLTB Tennis Kids Coach you have a responsibility to deliver a high quality environment so that players can learn the game quickly and effectively. We have summarised the keys to this as P.A.I.D. For each activity that you do you should remember that it must fit as many of the principles listed as possible. This will ensure the most effective learning possible and help players progress rapidly.

Purpose – the mission

Before you start you should be clear upon the purpose of the activity or practice that you are using. If you are unsure of its purpose then the best advice is not to use it.

·  Why are you doing this activity? Can you clearly define the objective?

·  Can you see the results of the activity? Can you teach / improve your player’s performance?

·  Is it a review activity, practicing a skill that you have already established, or about learning a new skill? Both are important but you should be cautious of doing too many things that do not challenge the player to improve, at this young age when learning can happen rapidly.

Activity – the game of tennis

This set of principles is about making activities tennis specific. With literally thousands of tennis drills listed in publications and shared between pros around the world it is important to ensure that you use those which are most appropriate. We have already discussed these concepts:

·  Defining The Court - try to define an area for each activity, include where to and where from

·  Two Players - get players to work together, both cooperating and working on opposition, on sending and receiving in the same activity sessions (ensure that you understand that you are teaching all players not just the hitters)

·  Movement - players need to start in a ready position, move to the ball, balance and then recover rather than just stand and hit

·  The Ball - players need to develop reception skills, strokes do not work without them

But it is also worth considering these principles which will also help

·  Targets - large enough to create success with a central point for focus, keep options down to two to maintain the focus on targets

·  Outcome- what is the objective of the activity, can you and your players see or measure it clearly. You might consider recording it and see if in a few weeks time the players have improved their performance.

·  Rules - does the activity have rules or help the player to understand the rules of the game. We have already discussed this in “Teaching The Game”


Individual – the way a child learns

Children are like sponges soaking up information and knowledge and improving skill very rapidly (subject to readiness). So providing the right activities can be the different between effective learning and children getting into bad habits.

·  Three Hits - avoid having children in lines, where they hit one ball and run to the back of the line. It doesn’t create learning as children do not establish enough opportunity or repetition to learn a skill or motor pattern

·  Motivation – Consider what appeals to the child, why would they want to do it? Makes sure that you explain why it is important and what they will gain from learning this skill!

·  Reward Systems – using very simple rewards systems like the stickers used in KNLTB Tennis Kids is a great way of keeping levels of effort high.

·  Review – children love to do task that they are familiar with. If you have children then you will know how often they want to watch the same TV programme over and over again. And while you may think variety is very important to create effective learning the task must be repeated from lesson to lesson (see Lesson Planning)

·  Teaching in Blocks – although they need to repeat tasks we have already mentioned that attention spans are limited so you should be careful not to do an activity for too long. Effective learning is better in short blocks, so rather than doing one activity for 20 minutes try splitting it up into two 10 minute blocks.

·  Inclusion - avoid using too many elimination games, those eliminated are usually the ones that need more practice. If you must use games where players are eliminated then you should have a way of those players rejoining the game.

·  Progression & Challenge – one of the key skills of a coach with children at this age is the ability to find tasks at the relevant level. So activities should be easily adapted to find a suitable level for each player, bearing in mind that you may have different levels of ability within the same class or group. In general the simpler the activity is the more different levels you can find.

·  Understanding – finally you must ensure that the activity helps the player to understand why and when they will use it. Players who understand the reason for learning something are far more likely to engage fully in trying to learn it.

Delivery – the way a pro teaches

Your skills as a coach are the single most important factor in the improvement of players at this young age. “How to be” is THE essential skill that a Tennis Kids Coach needs to have!

·  Aspiration – children under seven years old do not often have a global awareness, they know their immediate family and friends and may know little about the game at the highest level. When presenting activities the use of imagination will help, relating things to colours numbers, cartoon characters and the ROGITS in the materials. Children over seven start to develop a greater awareness of the game at all levels and you should use aspiration in your communication, naming drills and practices after players and talking about tennis at the professional level.

·  Brevity – This is not just a skill at this young age but you should stay focussed on keeping all communication short and simple. For most children you have 20 seconds to deliver your message before they lose focus and stop taking in information.

·  Visual – Of course most children learn visually so you should show the skill so that they can copy it; don’t forget to also show the activity as children will understand much more about it if they see it in action first.

·  Purpose – keep the purpose very clear in your head. It is easy to be distracted and start working on a topic that you hadn’t intended to. As a coach be specific and stay focused and you will make more rapid progress.

·  Measurable tasks – children need to see progress in increments. That is why the Awards exist to help players work towards simple tasks that they can tick off and understand that they have improved. Showing even smaller levels of incremental progress can be done by using some simple score cards and recording a players improvement over a few months.

Note about Balls

It should be noted that using different balls is a simple and effective way of introducing new skills and techniques. So at you may still make use of the lower level ball when introducing skills or when players are having difficulty mastering a task. Please see the table below for the expected use of multiple balls within the programme.