Netball is about power, precision, and passion—but learning it should be pure fun.

Read on to discover how children learn the FUNdamentals of netball through our sessions…

When coaching grassroots netball or any sport for that matter, there is no one size fits all style of teaching.

Children arrive from different backgrounds, have varied abilities, ages, unique personalities and so much more. We don’t just accept it; we celebrate every unique quality the children bring to Mighty Netball.

One characteristic children do have in common is that they all engage with and love having fun!

Making our sessions high energy, continuously active, age appropriate and FUN is the absolute priority when planning weekend activities.

Children learn and retain more information when the activity is associated with strong positive emotion or experience such as joy, success and happiness. By making our sessions continuously active and engaging, we unlock a state of deep focus that dramatically improves skill retention.

We cover a structured curriculum every term, teaching the children a different netball skill every week. The skill is then applied to match play or game sense at the end of each session.

Over time, these weekly skills accumulate like building blocks, culminating in a comprehensive understanding of how the entire game is played.

Click here to read more about our bespoke scaled equipment for 5-11 year olds and why it is so important when children start playing sport.

Year 1&2

Language and instruction are adapted accordingly to each age group. Everything we do with our youngest children is imagination based and skills are buried within the play themed content. Skills and techniques are absorbed subconsciously while children think they are just having lots of fun!

Using terms like BOOMs and Ice Cream Feet transforms a tricky movement into an easily memorable, auditory, and physical cue. This repetition cements footwork skills into a child’s mind by the sounds, enabling them to develop muscle memory and learn very quickly how a skill should ‘feel’—not just how it should look.

Likewise, a 5-year old may not understand what stage 3 defending is, but turn the game into a high energy scenario where a Knight is protecting treasure from the dragons, and it makes total sense which is fully embraced! 

• Everything is taught through imagination and play based scenarios
• High energy and engagement throughout entire session
• Skills embedded into play creates subconscious learning
• Age appropriate language throughout – very few actual netball terms used at this stage
• Specific words and repetition such as BOOMs, ice cream and frozen feet resonates and cements muscle memory
• Children start to play “Gamesense” – learning to pass and catch the ball in the right direction with their team members
• Netball bibs are worn purely to recognise teams but positions and zones are not yet introduced
• Continuous praise and “you’ve got this” attitude!

Year 3&4

As the children move on to the next age group, Year 3&4, the technical content blends imagination and fun with netball specific skills. By now skills such as agility, balance and coordination are often (but not always) more developed, allowing the technical element of learning to be progressed. Language and coaching style is adapted in order to provide the best possible experience for this age group. They still love playing a character or using an imaginative scenario to learn, but more technical terms and netball specific descriptive explanations can start getting brought into the sessions.

• High energy and engagement continues throughout entire session
• Technical content blends imagination and fun with netball specific skills
• Skills such as agility, balance and coordination are often (but not always) more developed, allowing the technical element of learning to be progressed
• Language and coaching style is adapted in order to provide the best experience for this age group
• Netball positions and zones are introduced and end of session matches are played focusing on the skill of the week
• Teamwork skills start to develop and the encouragement and understanding of working together to achieve a joint goal is keenly implemented
• Continuous praise always connected to our values here

Year 5&6

Transitioning from Year 4, the Year 5&6 sessions elevate the netball experience by introducing more complex actions. Players will refine their existing movement skills to drive deeper netball-specific development. This is where techniques truly begin to be honed, and the language, along with the skills, become noticeably more technical and mature.

However, we ensure this focused growth, both mentally and physically, never comes at the expense of fun! It’s still very much present, just simply adapted correctly for this age group.

• Again, high energy and engagement continues throughout entire session
• Techniques and language, along with skills, becomes noticeably more technical and mature
• Full positional match play is established and matches are coached and umpired at a higher level teaching more detailed rules, infringements and set play
• Growth, both mentally and physically, never comes at the expense of having fun – children are not too old to still embrace being a dragon, pirate, fox or farmer at times!
• Praise throughout, and values always celebrated over winning!

What is our ultimate objective as a grassroots sports organisation?

It’s pretty simple really – we want to give children the most positive start to sport and activity possible. Children who have fun, feel competent, and are challenged at a suitable level are far more likely to continue participating in sports and physical activity throughout their adolescence and into adulthood.

Negative early experiences, like excessive pressure or over-emphasis on winning, are a primary cause of early dropout and burnout.

At Mighty Netball we are non competitive, meaning we are not a club and don’t enter leagues or play matches outside of our organisation.

This was a considered decision by our founders to ensure ALL children can reap the benefits of team sport at any stage, meaning we are 100% inclusive regardless of experience.

This absolutely does not mean we don’t take educating our children on the FUNdamentals of netball very seriously!

A positive start and retention lays the foundation for a lifetime of physical activity and healthy habits while promoting comprehensive physical, mental, emotional, social, and cognitive development.

We strive to build the foundations and motivation to progress to School netball teams, Club netball membership or to go on to other wonderful sporting achievements.

Seeing children thrive in a club or any team sport after moving on from Mighty Netball is the ultimate confirmation that we’ve achieved exactly what we set out to do!