This is a Sport Australia podcast production.

Cam Tradell [00:00:07] Hello, and welcome to our coaching and officiating podcast series. My name is Cam Tradell and I'm the project lead for coaching officiating at Sport Australia. Over this series, we will look at what it takes to modernise Australia's coaching and officiating system. Each podcast, we will be joined by a special guest who will share experiences and practical tips on their topics. This week, we're joined by Shane Pill. It was a long and distinguished career as a physical education and science teacher, sport coach, and has worked on developing coaching resources for Cricket Australia, the National Rugby League, Tennis Australia, the AFL, Lacrosse Australia, the Australian Sports Commission and numerous state-based organisations. Shane, your resumé and wealth of experience speaks for itself, and it's great to have you with us to share your insights on coaching. Welcome.

Shane Pill [00:00:59] Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Cam Tradell [00:01:02] Shane, you've seen a lot in your role, but also being a sport coach, as well as working in the universities and working with a lot of research. And you see a lot and over time, you get to understand the trends and see how things have shifted from what we used to do to where we are today. We know that these are drop in fine motor or fundamental movement skills and so on, with participants coming through the system. Can you give us an insight through your experience or the research to what impact is that having on today's participants and athletes?

Shane Pill [00:01:35] Well, that's a very, very big area to unpack Cam and I'm a child of the 70s and 80s, and so I grew up with dad taking me to football clubs and having a kick with players before the game and after the game. And dad and mum were also played squash to socially keep fit. So, I grew up around squash courts and would have a hit with whoever was available to warm up with. So, I never had any formal squash coaching lessons but certainly had a hit. One of my most memorable experiences is Nikki Caldwell, Cardwell, who used to float around Alberton Squash Club because that was her home club, and she saw this 14-year-old floating around and 'onto the court fella" and having a hit with me for the practice. Mum played midweek ladies’ tennis and of course we would go there, and you'd have a hit, a tennis hit against the wall. Yeah, these are the opportunities that have disappeared because of the change in social circumstances around people's work lives and the amount of availability that they have, and perhaps some of the drift away from informal sport participation. Yeah, my father and all his friends played squash over summer to keep fit for football season, and that sort of thing wasn't uncommon. They didn't play squash to compete in squash. Football was their sport, but they all played squash because they wanted that fast acceleration training in the off season. Now, in the off season, they'll probably work with a sprint coach, or something defined like that, which of course has its benefits in developing an athletic model. We would come home from school, and we would be kicked out side and all the kids in the street would be kicking a football around playing cricket. We would just roam on our bikes for hours, and I've often had a conversation with mum, and she said, it used to scare her somewhat. But I would just disappear after breakfast and come back sometime in the afternoon for lunch and then disappear again. No mobile phones, no tracking devices. You couldn't go onto your phone and find out where your kids were. It was just a trust that are out there with other kids doing kid stuff. And of course, that's less likely to happen with kids of today, as well, so I've seen since the 1970s when I went to primary school into secondary school and to today, there's a lot less kids riding their bikes to school, walking to school. One of the biggest issues the schools have is how to manage the flow of four-wheel drives through the drop off. Not where can we put all the bikes that the kids are riding to school? Yeah, I went, I went to school, if you got there a little bit late you racking your bike two deep against the fence because all the bike racks were gone. But now you struggle to find bike racks at schools. There's a perception that it's more dangerous to ride your bike. But statistically, it's no more dangerous to ride your bike now than what it was 50 years ago. Of course, it's going to be more accidents because there's more people. Doesn't mean there's a statistically significant more chance of that happening. So there's a there's a general decline in the opportunity to take the skills that you're learning in physical education and apply them in your life, either through forced opportunity because a parent was kicking you outside or school teachers were walking around at recess and lunch and going, you've just been sitting down for a couple of hours in class. Get up and move around. Go grab a tennis ball, go grab a football. This socialisation of physical activity out of our daily lives has meant that we are, we are less movement competent than our great grandparent’s generation. And that's not me saying that that's what the data tells us, the data tells us, despite the fact that our physical education curriculum says to be a standard, you must have coordination and control of majority fundamental movement skills by the end of year four. But the research tells us that now the majority of kids in secondary school without coordination and control of those fundamental movement skills upon which the confidence to be physically active is built upon. So somehow, they're passing P.E without actually meeting the curriculum requirements, because when we talk to these kids and go, "What grades did you get in P.E? Well, I passed".  How could, we don’t say this to the kids, obviously, but the thought process. You can't run, you can't throw it. You can't skip. You can't jump. How did you pass primary school P.E? So, we have a masking of the problem, if this was literacy and numeracy, this problem wouldn't be masked because there's a standardised test called NAPLAN. And one of the things that I had out in the media a couple of years ago was, I think we need to be mature enough to have the conversation that the things that are asses9.sed are the things that we value. And if we actually value developing the movement competency that gives people the confidence to pursue a life of physical activity, maybe we need a national movement skill competency assessment as part of NAPLAN, because that would that communicate to all, that we are serious about making sure that our population has the physical competency that ensures they have the feelings of self-efficacy that drive the choice to be physically active.

Cam Tradell [00:06:53] Having skill and activity does build confidence in other areas, not just in the in the physical, the attributes attached to a sport and a lot of that. I think the ripple effect benefits aren’t also being explored or recognised as well. So, I think there's a lot more than just the competence to be able to catch or play a sport. It's about being physically happy with how your body moves and being able to move. Is that a fair assessment?

Shane Pill [00:07:20] I think that's all wrapped up in your confidence to be selective in your choice to be physically active. And the other thing that those of us that grew up around sports clubs and played sport is the personal and social skills that are developed and also the I'll call it, Community Connections that are developed and the friends that are made for life where you you'll see someone 20 or 30 years later and there will be the water cooler moment. "Remember that mark? Remember that goal? Oh, remember that kick. Remember the day we did this? Remember that situation over there?" These humans are connected by their stories. The Monday Morning Stories and Sport provides those Monday morning stories in abundance, and that's why so many people follow sport. Because as a barracker of a sport team, did you see that goal? Did you see that kick? And there's a sense that we've shifted from being sport participants in the active sense to be sport participants in the observer sense to get the Monday morning stories. And I think if we're going to have a more active and therefore healthy Australia, we need to shift that back to those Monday morning stories coming from our participation. And I've talked about this in one of the blogs how as sports coaches and teachers are we creating the Monday morning story, the emotional connection to the activity, the goal, the kick, the mark, the tumble on the ground that creates the story to tell that you have the capacity to laugh at us because we laugh at ourselves because we tripped over in the moment in the game and got up, dusted off, had a bit of a laugh, got back on with the game again. The persistence, the resilience, the sense of optimism that comes from participating in sport when sport is in its best environment is the reason why sport has been so culturally valued in the first place. Yes, it provides a physical activity and therefore a potential health benefit, but it provides social emotional benefits as well, which is, I think, what you're alluding to say. Through sport, we find a valued connection to all of the things that make something worthwhile in a physical education sense. And that physical education sense is not just the psychomotor development, but the social emotional competencies, the cultural competencies that come from that development as well.

Cam Tradell [00:09:44] You touched then on that job or the role that teachers have, or physical education teachers have. What about coaches and officials? Knowing that they're saying not what they used to see come through? They're now seeing the breed that may be aren't as competent as they were before. What role can they play and how important do you see them being in creating this intrinsic motivation into activity in sport?

Shane Pill [00:10:06] Coaches are huge. Coaches are many kids first induction into a lovely phrase that you use being educated into sport and physical activity, and it's in those Auskick, T20 blast.  I know don't if it's still called Netta Netball, whatever the program's called now in its latest iteration, that's the introduction to a lifetime potential of physical activity. And I think Auskick do it brilliantly. It's not parent on the sideline while coach looks after the kids, it’s the parent in there, being physically active with their kids, role modelling it, doing it with them and that's a powerful communication. You know, I’m here, I'm doing it role model for the kid, provide them with the aspiration through the inspiration of the parent giving it a go. And there's no coincidence that you're more likely as a child to grow into a physically active adult, if you've had parents who role model the importance of physical activity and encouraged physical activity with you and specific to sport, parents are the ones that initiate kids into sport. They make the decision to take them to whatever that sporting experience is. Some great work by Wendy Schiller, Phillip Derbyshire and I think it was Colin MacDougall nearly 20 years ago now, showed that young kids they're interest is in play exploring how their body moves and the capability of their bodies, and they get that cognitive as well as physical development by using movement to explore your environment in teams with others on your own. They just want to play. Sport is a social construction at play that the adults take them to because the adults are interested in the kids playing sport. And on your other point, you know, the coaches therefore capture that interest in play, foster that or not, that interest in play and therefore engage that physical activity, culture or through their practice can turn kids off physical activity culture. That's where coaches play such a vital role. They either capture, sustain and maintain that natural interest in getting my body to move and exploring how my body moves and being active. What does it feel like to be active? Or they shut that down. That's a pedagogical choice. That's a content choice. That's how you set up your environment. So, coaches are absolutely critical.

Cam Tradell [00:12:43] Do you have any sort of thoughts on how you build that value proposition for the parent to come out over the fence and come and get involved and how you sort of sell that to them or using a crude term? How do you sell that value to get the parents over the fence?

Shane Pill [00:12:58] I'll use a personal experience where I was coaching and under eight soccer team, and we started at 3.30ish and again it was majority mums doing the pickup from school escorting their kids over to the park. And the school rule was you couldn't drop and run, because the duty of care stayed with the parent. So, I went over to the parents and said, I've got five games of four on four going. I can only see one game at a time. All you have to do is spot good stuff and say, well done. Whatever you think, you spot good stuff and say, well done, that's good enough, just can I allocate you each to a game and get over there in the mum's went "oh yeah, we can do that". They got up and took the coffees, they are fantastic. And then a bit later on, I said to one of the mums who was a little bit more engaged and knew a bit more about football soccer because of her husband's involvement in it. I said, look, I've got this child who I reckon he's got an undiagnosed special need and he just doesn't know when to run, how to run. And the social engagement is not quite there. Can you shadow this child around this activity that we're going to do? "What do you mean by Shadow? Just move with them, encourage them, say now's the time to go”. That might not have been the best thing to say. Have a look over here now. Kick the ball there just to help with their decision making, as well as the initiation of being active to give them some eventual confidence. And we'll be out to wean that off. I'll said, "oh yeah, I think I can do that." And she got involved. Now, I have this endearing memory now of her, and I won't say the child's name, let’s call the child, Simon. Simon has kicked the ball and I'm at the end pretending to be goalkeeper, which is the end of the challenge and I'll let the ball go past me. And Simon turns to her with the arms in the air. She's lifted up the T-shirt like the soccer players and done the run towards the crowd because she's so pleased with what has happened. Fortunately it was, winter so there was clothing underneath, but you can. You can get what I mean. Where I'm going with this story is, often the parents are just looking for the invitation to be involved, and they're looking for a simple entry point in. And once you've got that simple entry point in, you can grow the capacity for them to be involved from there on. So, I encourage all coaches to see the parents as a resource. To hold a meeting at the start of the season to let them know what you're about, why you're about it and how you go about it and encourage that involvement and find moments to get the parents involved. Because as we've discussed, there's no more powerful role model for young people than their parents being physically active and physically active with them as well.

Cam Tradell [00:15:45] I'm going to fast forward now. We're going to go to 2032. We've got an Olympic Games here in Australia. If we intervene now knowing that there will be some athletes who are coming through young kids of today that have just seen the Olympics being shut down had one good thing. As we lived through COVID, we saw maybe a little bit more Olympics than what we may not have before. Do you think that there is an ability for us, if we change, we create these positive environments, these really fruitful sporting environments for these kids? Is there a chance that that we impact with 2032?

Shane Pill [00:16:19] Looks like I'll go backwards before we go forward. The reason why we have strong is such a strong emphasis on sport in physical education, and I'm not suggesting sport is physical education, but sport is an absolute necessary focus area in physical education. And one of the reasons we had the shift from marching drill, cadets, gymnastics, athletics focus in primary schools, was we won the Olympics in the 1950s, the Melbourne Olympics. So in order to make sure we weren't embarrassed as host country, we developed resources, teaching capacity, coaching capacity to upskill, so we could be highly competitive with the Olympics in our own country. My colleague Russell Brown has talked about that frequently from a sociological perspective. So, we've seen in the past that if we invest, we can make a difference, and sometimes what we need is this event where we're are on world display and we want to make sure we display ourselves well, that means the investment will be forthcoming. So, I think we have an opportunity, I think we have an opportunity to promote why we need it. And definitely, we know that the Australian Sports Commission now Sport Australia has been key to unlocking the potential for the development of the movement capacity of Australians. Since the 1970s and in my own teaching career in physical education, the big initiatives that have driven changes in physical education came from the Australian Sports Commission, who invested in the 1990s in the development of the game sense approach so that we had I play first model of sports coaching. That game sense approach is as relevant now as it has ever been. Despite the fact that it was trialed and released between 1994 and 2006, which makes it, what, twenty-one years old now? Most coaches would still consider it an innovation because it's not their common experience of coaching. So, returning to that game sense approach and its its message of play games, play games with purpose. Know, the educative intent of the game, but play games because that's what motivates. And that's what we're there to do to prepare people to be able to play the game successfully because if they feel success, they're more likely to turn up again. So, let's re-energize that that notion of the game sense approach, which still sits there on the Sport Australia website alongside the Physical Literacy Strategy, alongside the Playing for Life strategy as the pedagogical platform to bring those two elements to life. The Sports Commission invested in the sport education model, translation of Daryl Siedentop’s work into Australian curriculum, and that sport education model replicated all the best features of sport in physical education. So, the social constructs of sport was understood by young people, and I could find an entry point, if the entry point wasn't player. Maybe it was artist representing sport. Maybe it was publicist writing about sport. Maybe it was statistician, recording sport and providing the feedback for the awards and the festivity. Maybe it was as an administrator of the sport experience. And so, bringing those capabilities into the school curriculum so that people could then transfer those out into community. We know that Sport Australia, therefore is the critical player not just for sport, but for sport in physical education as well. Physical education looks to Sport Australia for the leadership, for the opportunity to fund initiatives that will drive better practice in physical education and if we get better practice in physical education, arguably we'll get better practice in community sport. Because often sport will go, oh, you're the P.E teacher, can you coach the under 13's team, oh, you're the P.E Teacher, I see you're the P.E teacher at Ascot Vale Primary School, can you coach these under eight Netball team? And so, you get the physical education teachers active in the sports clubs and then you connect the other coaches to what they're doing and eventually we start to upskill the system because I'm a firm believer, having done a coach development project in South Australia funded by the Office for Rec and Sport a couple of years ago. The single best investment that we can make to retain kids in sport, so we have more kids, more active, more often is to upskill the capacity of the sports coaches because the single biggest contributor to retention in community sport that the clubs can have an influence on is the quality of the coaching that the young people are experiencing.

Cam Tradell [00:21:35] Incredible Shane and there's a lot for us to think about and unpack this. I really appreciate your time this afternoon. Thanks very much for joining us.

Cam Tradell [00:21:45] Thank you for joining me today. If you'd like to find out more about coaching officiating or have any feedback or questions, please email us at workforce@sportaus.gov.au. My name is Cam Tradell, and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the coaching officiating series.