Kilburn Gaels Hurling Club London

SKILLS AWARDS

U Can Skills Awards (6 - 14 year olds)

The U Can Awards are a progressive series of skills challenges, designed to assess and assist with the development of the skills of Hurling. They have been developed with a view to recognising differing levels of ability and ensuring that all participants strive to master the basic technical skills of the game. The more they are prepared to practice in their own free time, the more successful they will be in this regard.

There are 15 Skills Challenges divided over 5 Star levels – One Star, Two Star, Three Star, Four Star and Five Star. Each Star level corresponds to an age or school year, but players can also progress at a rate appropriate to their own level of ability and application. Each Star level is made up of 3 Skill Challenges each scoring a mark out of six. Awards are made on the basis of proficiency at each challenge as follows:

Bronze	1 - 2 points
Silver	3 - 4 points
Gold	5 - 6 points

Players may re-take skills as many times as is necessary to attain a Gold Award.

The U Can Awards Passport is a feature of this scheme which can be used to motivate children – on an intrinsic basis – and also provides coaches with a measure of qualitative feedback on the progress being made by each participant. For example, the attainment of the 5 Star Gold Award provides conclusive evidence of the fact that the participant has achieved full playing proficiency on the left and right hand side of the body. Each player will receive their own U Can Passport following their first attempt at the One Star Award; please keep it somewhere safe and ensure that your child brings it to each U Can Awards session. The Passport - which also contains a section for Gaelic football - should also be taken to any Gaelic games workshop or Cúl Camp – either here or in Ireland – which your child attends.

As a club we strongly support the use of the U Can Awards as a means of promoting individual practice and skill development among our young players. Each player will be provided with the opportunity to take a U Can Award on at least three occasions throughout the season, progressing from one to the next at their own pace. As parents, we would ask you to encourage your child (ren) to practice the skills relevant to their stage of development and to embrace the U Can Awards as a means of charting individual progress and providing intrinsic motivation. The Awards are not designed as a form of competition; there are no bonuses for progressing through the levels of Awards quicker than other children and no player's marks will be known to another unless they tell them.

Follow the links below to see details of all five levels of Award that your child (ren) will take, together with diagrams of how they are to be set out. The One Star Award may be taken using either the larger First Touch sliotar or a standard size 4 sliotar. All other Award levels are taken using a standard sliotar.