Movement and the ABC’s
Here's something that surprises many parents when we explain it: brilliant ball skills don't actually count for much if a child can't move well first. You can teach a stepover or a clever turn, but if a child can't balance, change direction, or control their own body at speed, that skill has nowhere to live. Before any of the sport-specific stuff comes the real foundation: agility, balance and coordination. Coaches tend to call them the ABCs, and they sit underneath every single sport your child will ever try, from football to netball to simply not falling over in the playground.
The mistake people often make is assuming the way to build these is endless repetition of one activity. It isn't. The thing that genuinely develops good movers is variety - lots of different ways of running, stopping, dodging, jumping, twisting and reacting to what's around them. A child who plays a bit of everything builds a much broader, more robust base - and tends to pick up new sports faster later on because their body already has the vocabulary.
This is exactly why our lunchtime and after-school clubs are deliberately multi-sport rather than one thing on repeat. In a single week, a child might play dodgeball, basketball, a bit of football and a whole load of fast, chaotic tag-style games - and every one of those asks something different of their body. Dodgeball sharpens reactions and quick changes of direction. Basketball builds coordination, balance and the ability to change pace. Football brings in twisting, turning and close control. The tag games, which the kids think are just an excuse to run around screaming, are quietly some of the best movement training going. To them it all feels like play. Underneath, they're laying down movement skills that will serve them whatever they end up choosing to focus on.
There's an age element to it too, which is worth knowing as a parent. Roughly between five and eleven is a golden window for this foundational movement work - it's the stage where these patterns embed most easily and naturally. Get plenty of varied, playful movement in during those years, and you're setting your child up for everything that follows. Push narrow, repetitive, sport-specific training too early, and you often miss the chance to build the broad base that makes the specific stuff easier later.
It's the same principle that sits behind genuinely good PE, and it's a big part of why we put so much thought into the range of what we do rather than just rolling a ball out and letting them get on with it. Keeping it varied isn't us being indecisive - it's the whole point! 🤸