Primary school coaches and physical education teachers from across the island are lauding the CONCACAF D Licence Coaching Course which started Tuesday at the UWI-JFF Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence and ends today.

The course, which was put on by the regional governing body (CONCACAF) in collaboration with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), will be offered to 16 coaches affiliated through the Institute of Sports primary school football competition which ended in January of this year. The coaches are from Clarendon, Hanover, St Elizabeth, St Catherine, St Andrew, Manchester, St Ann and Kingston.

The participants will be introduced to a variety of topics including principles of coaching, health and safety, session planning, small sided games, age-appropriate training, coaching defending and attacking in small groups, how and when to pass; dribble and control and club development.

The coaches and PE teachers are welcoming the move to upgrade their knowledge base at primary school level.

Curtis McKenzie of Windward Road Primary in Kingston said this will answer the call for more qualified coaches in primary institutions.

“We need more qualified coaches because most times we are working with raw talent and they (kids) are not taught formal football. Most just go out and play.

“So if we can help them with the formal game at an early stage it would be a great step because a lot of them leave primary school and go to high school and don’t know formal football and Jamaica is way ahead of that. That was the old time days,” he said.

He added that “it would help us facilitate the knowledge of football… because what is beating the juniors now is the knowledge of the game. So we will be better prepared to go and help the kids and they will be more sensitive to what is expected of them, because the more they learn about the game the more it will help them.”

Althea Drummond of Westmoreland champions Broughton Primary said they will be better able to help the children make the transition from primary to high school level football.

“It (the course) is good because it is beneficial to the children and the children are always first. So anything that will benefit them, I am all for it. If we go to the course and use what we learn, it will be better for the small children and when they go to the high school level they will be better off,” she commented.

Kemar Bailey of Alley Primary in Clarendon said programmes like this will have short-and long-term benefits.

“This is the foundation and if you get the foundation right we will see the results in our youth programmes and, by extension, our national programme,” said Bailey, who guided Alley to third place in the premier national primary school football competition.

“This is one of the best moves they could possibly make. If we impart the knowledge correctly, I think we will be seeing the results in the near future. Short term in the youth programmes and long term in the senior programme,” he said.

At the opening ceremony participants were addressed by Alando Terrelonge, State Minister in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports; JFF President Michael Ricketts and CONCACAF Instructor Vin Blaine.

The course is two-fold also as the presenters – Wendell Downswell, who is the national director of football, Hopeton Gilchrist and Davion Ferguson – will be assessed by Blaine, who is overseeing the entire exercise.

“The most important thing is to train the trainers who are actually the instructors (for this course). This D Licence course is a culmination of the training process for them,” Blaine explained. “They did a (train the trainers) course in Barbados and the process is they do the initial course… then there’s a mentorship period that follows and now they have the D Licence course where they have to instruct and I will assess them on how they instruct and observe the coaches.”

At the end of the course participants will officially receive their CONCACAF D Licence Coaching certification upon successful completion.