A periodised curriculum for grassroots coaches.
Land on any week of the season and deliver a session that works.
Built for the way grassroots football actually works.
Every week follows Play · Practice · Play: a 3v3 arrival game (15 minutes), one focused practice (20 minutes) and a finishing game. No planning burden, no guesswork.
Each session either introduces something new, or repeats a session coaches and players already know, so both consolidate their learning rather than skim the surface.
Missed weeks, shared squads, parent volunteers stepping in. Every week stands on its own, so a coach can drop in at any point in the plan and still deliver.
At U5 to U7, the 3v3 arrival games also fit the FA's 3v3 format.
The thinking behind the plan.
Skills are not learned in one go. Topics return block after block, so players revisit, refine and improve rather than cover something once and move on.
Each time a block repeats, the coach delivers sessions they already know. Sessions move from the page into a toolbox of ones they are genuinely comfortable running.
First pass: new learning. Every pass after that: consolidation.
Technical and physical come first. Game understanding and tactics are layered in when age-appropriate. The social corner runs through every plan, at every age.
Repeating sessions doesn't bore young players. A session they recognise is one they can succeed in, and success keeps them coming back.
Each age group has its own cycle of blocks, its own balance of the corners, and adds new sessions to the coach's toolbox.
Two 5-week blocks repeat across the whole season. Ten sessions, revisited again and again, so young players build real technical skill. By the end of U5 the coach knows ten sessions inside out: a genuine coaching toolbox, not a folder of sessions they ran once. In year two (U6), extra sessions stretch players and coaches further.
Corners: technical and physical lead; the social corner runs throughout.
The ten sessions: Ball Mastery, Dribbling, Passing, Control & Turning, Shooting, Twisting & Turning, Physical Literacy & Passing, Ball Mastery with Spatial Awareness, Dribbling with ABCs, Running with the Ball.
Three-quarters of the work develops more advanced technical and physical skills. A quarter begins to build game understanding through the attacking and defending principles. Familiar format, new demands.
Corners: technical and physical dominate, with game understanding introduced. Social throughout.
Topics include: Dynamic Ball Mastery & Turns, Passing & Receiving, Finishing, Combination Play, Creating Space, Defending Fundamentals.
The balance shifts to equal thirds, with technical and physical work woven through the game-understanding sessions. The challenge rises for players while every session stays simple for the coach to pick up and deliver.
Corners: technical, physical and psychological all in play. Social throughout.
Four 4-week blocks with introductory tactical concepts. The part-progressive coaching style is introduced, developing not just what coaches deliver but how they deliver it, in preparation for 11v11 at U13/U14.
Corners: all five: technical, physical, social, psychological and tactical.
The whole game, broken down into age-appropriate learning. Every year the coach adds to their toolbox, and every year the players build on what came before.
A season broken into blocks of sessions that repeat, so topics come back at planned intervals. Players revisit and refine skills instead of covering them once and moving on.
No. A session they recognise is one they can succeed in, and success keeps them coming back. Each time a block repeats, players sharpen the skill and coaches sharpen their delivery.
Every week stands on its own. A coach can start at any point in the plan and still deliver a complete session, which suits missed weeks, shared squads and parent volunteers.
Technical, physical, psychological (game understanding), social and tactical. Technical and physical come first; game understanding and tactics are layered in when they are age-appropriate, and the social corner runs through every age.
Every week follows Play-Practice-Play: a 3v3 arrival game of about 15 minutes, one focused 20-minute practice and a finishing game.
