Last month Simone Spencer from Aktive led a professional development session for netball centre personnel, providing an opportunity to deepen their understanding of Good Sports.
Representatives from Waiuku, Manurewa, Howick Pakuranga, and Waitākere centres attended, contributing valuable insights and time. Netball New Zealand's participation staff and zone participation leads from across the country also joined the session, adding a national perspective on aligning initiatives throughout netball.
More than just sideline behaviour
A key learning of the day is that Good Sports is much more than just sideline behaviour. The session focused on the Good Sports Spine tool, which emphasises creating a positive sporting climate that supports development over performance.
Netball Northern, Community Netball Manager, Karyne Ross says the participants explored the differences between a “climate of performance” and a “climate of development,” noting how each impacts young players.
“Everyone agreed that a development-focused climate, rather than a fixation on winning, enhances players' enjoyment of the game,” says Karyne.
Key aspects of the day
One of the key discussions was around the role of a “Good Sports Champion” within their centres and membership, and how to utilise a wide reach of these champions.
“We discussed the value in a ‘bottom-up’ approach, empowering centers to take the lead in cultivating positive change,” says Karyne.
“It was agreed that centres can act as change agents to shape culture and enjoyment.”
About the professional development opportunity
Having the Good Sports professional development opportunity available to centre staff and personnel was a positive step forward.
From this session, Netball Northern is setting up a 6-week programme with some of the attendees. They’ll be tasked with identifying practical initiatives and develop both short and long-term systems of change that can be shared and utilised by netball centres within Netball Northern Zone. We look forward to hearing more.
