Under 11 Performance Card

Introduction

This performance card is to inform parents and guardians of the current level of technical ability for their Under 11 (U11) child. The card will be refreshed following one of:

  • Dave Parsons Memorial Quad Kids Competitions (one in the Autumn, one in Spring)
  • Thursday night training evaluation windows (two, one in October, one in mid–Summer)
  • The Under 11 County Championships (mid–May)

As a volunteer–led group, we are unable to offer individual assessment sessions.

For any child in Under 13 or higher age groups, please refer to their record in 'The Power of 10' web site: https://www.thepowerof10.info

Performance Standard Sources

  • Beep Test – www.topendsports.com/testing/norms/beep.htm
  • English Schools Athletic Association (ESAA)
  • For the purple standard, we have referenced the past decade of Under 11 performance in the Wessex Track and Field League.


The ESAA has very sympathetic performance band ranges; this undoubtedly is in part due to the schools encouraging and assessing children from all backgrounds and lifestyles. As a club, we recognise our young athletes will generally perform to a higher average standard due to their interest, training effort and coaching. To that end we have added a purple standard indicating when a child is performing at the level of an average Year 6 child.

The ESAA performance bands (plus our purple one) start from:

ESAA Performance Bands.

Targets

We do not set targets for under 11s. This is deliberate given the children in this age group come in all shapes and sizes and are developing physically and cognitively at different rates.

What we would say is we prefer every Year 5 child to work toward leaving the FUNdamentals Group at the end of August with at least Silver ESAA grades across the board. Whether they do so depends on their attitude, their commitment and their physical and mental development during training.

A Year 5 child will not be held back from moving up to the Foundation Group if they fail to achieve these standards, however they will find the transition to Foundation-level training intensity more of a challenge.

For any athlete (most likely drawn from the Year 5 population), who wishes to be considered for our Under 11 elite Competition Squad, the higher the performance ratings across each of the 75m, 600, long jump and howler throw (alongside the right attitude, behaviours and commitment), the more likely they are to be in the squad discussions that take place around Christmas each year.

How to identify your child

Each child is identified by the last four characters of their post code (if you move house, please update their Love Admin record) e.g. a child living at SN1 1AA would be shown as 11AA.

Where there are two Under 11 children living at the same residence, we will add indicators to the end of their reference that only their parents/guardians would understand.

Performance Card as at 31st August 2024