We have taken a bit of a break in running referee schools over the winter period so we can focus on the development and coaching of the current referee group to help support their progression and improvement on court.
Since the completion of the B grade referee theory school earlier in the year, 14 of those who attended the course have successfully completed all components and have received their upgrade.
The recent A grade school has so far seen 7 of the Frankston referees successfully complete the course with coaching and development continuing with a few more to help them gain their qualification. As part of this course we also able to help 4 referees from Chelsea successfully complete the course. You will see a few of these referees helping us out on court on some of the mid-week competitions and the Saturday junior competitions.
Additional coaching has been happening on Saturdays from a number of our referee coaches and accredited supervisors to help our junior referees continue to develop their refereeing. A number of our green shirt referees have successfully received their black and white shirts and over the coming weeks we will be working with the remaining green shirt referees to help get them to their next level.
Last Saturday we started our final referee school for 2019. Our trainee referees will complete 2 weeks of theory as they also begin their on-court training starting with our Monday – Thursday senior competitions working with some of our most experienced referees and referee coaches. As our trainees grow in confidence and start to display some of the basic criteria we will then move their training onto our mid-week junior competitions and once successfully graded we will start to see them hit the court on our Saturday junior competitions.
For those who would be interested in being part of the next referee school, this will likely be run early February once the Saturday competitions commence after the school holiday break. You can register your interest by emailing referees@frankstonbasketball.asn.au.
Finally, the feedback from the refereeing group on the behaviour policy has so far been quite positive. They have noted that general participant behaviour has been quite good with a notable decrease in poor behaviour. I think that it is only fair to say thank you from the refereeing group to all participants on working with this new policy to help create a more positive experience out on court for not only the referees but all participants at the association.
Chris Morrey – Referee Advisor