As custodians of football and futsal, NZF have a responsibility to guide and nurture the community through a process to explore more and better opportunities within their game(s).

Senior secondary schools present an unprecedented opportunity to entice and educate year 11, 12 and 13 students to coach, play, organise and referee the game of football and futsal, while being recognised with the prospect of earning NCEA Achievement Standards.

Aligned with the New Zealand Curriculum and Sport New Zealand’s Growing Coaches, NZF has written NCEA achievement standards for students to learn football/futsal in and through the involvement of a series of activities during curriculum time.

The programme offers schools, physical education departments and the students with the skills required to critically think, act and reflect on how football and futsal can be coached, played, organised and refereed.

NZF piloted this programme late 2013 with Queen’s High School in Dunedin and were delighted that the interconnections between secondary schools and the intermediate/ primary schools, established strong ties as a result of the programme. The younger children were more engaged with the coaching sessions delivered by the secondary students, schools shared resources (that is, sport equipment and fields) and the senior students had a sense of achievement and satisfaction for adding value to the younger student’s sporting experiences.

NZF have chosen to roll out futsal in 2014/15 to meet the demand of one of NZ’s fastest growing sports.

The programme offers schools the support from federation futsal development officers to guide the students and the teachers through a comprehensive education system in class time for a minimum of eight classes. After the students experience Growing Coaches (offering the 'how to coach'), NZF recommends a student-friendly coaching module of 'what to coach'.

The students are given ample opportunity to practice coaching futsal amongst their peers before the secondary school students deliver NZF’s Football Literacy programme, in pairs, to either intermediate or primary school students during curriculum time.

Dwayne Woolliams, NZF’s programme standards manager, says they are excited that the senior secondary schools programme can facilitate more youth coaching youth.

"As long as we can provide the support through age-appropriate content and the human resources to nurture the schools through this programme, we honestly believe that this will encourage more youth to not only fall in love with coaching but remain in love with coaching. The transferability of learning is sound and futsal is fast, very exciting and a great way to have fun."

There are a number of NCEA Achievement Standards NZF are looking to tap in to, including video analysis, football/ futsal specific physiology and biomechanics.

For further information contact Dwayne Woolliams at dwayne.woolliams@nzfootball.co.nz.