Participation Research

[Uglybetty]

Inspired by a thread on the main WAG page about skills weeding out participants, I started digging on the BG website. I found this interesting piece of research which looks at why kids of different ages take part, what they enjoy and why they quit. Apologies if you've already seen it.

http://www.british-gymnastics.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=4055&Itemid=851

 

[Ex member]

That is an interesting read, just by scanning through the info and reading about the drop out reasons I can see why some children drop out of the sport as they get older, my dd turned 7 years old today and has done 2 years of rec gym progressing through the BG proficiency badges and completing when she was 6 years old, she has had some very positive feed back and recommendation to move out of rec and also has been noticed by the head coach who is planning in having dd start in a new group that is supposed to be starting soon - he told me and dd she is on his list. If this all comes to nothing then I cannot see my dd not continuing in rec gymnastics for much longer as there is no real progression, so that can be a source of drop outs, children with ability seemingly being ignored and left in rec could cause drop outs as they get older and become disenchanted with it all, the only way they can keep them interested in to make the rec classes longer then 1 hour for more able children and make it progression based to keep them interested and feel like they are achieving something.

 

[Faith]

I wonder if the elite track system leads to high drop out rates too. In the US everyone's on the same path, and even as a 10 year old level 5 you can see that you work, get to L6, L7...elite. It's within your control. In the UK you're at the mercy of the coaches and being in front of the right coach at the right time- first you've got to make it out of rec, then picked for the elite track...by the time you're 9 or 10 if you aren't on the radar it's likely you'll be left in grades or regionals for your gymnastics career. You're pretty much working your @rse off waiting for someone to notice you.

DD1 quit because while she was a fantastic gymnast, and was really moving ahead with skills, she was frustrated at not being moved along quicker. She wanted/wants to go as far as she can, and at 8 years old could pretty much see that elite gymnastics was an impossible dream because she was left in regional level 5 with no way out unless a coach took an interest and started moving her skills along faster.

Interestingly too DD2 has started a new club when DD1 left. It's much less formal and with a poorer programme- think YMCA vs. JO. But they do what I call the old fashioned sessions- everyone warms up, they get in rows to to rolls, cartwheels, and basic skills on the floor, then off to each piece. DD loves it far more than the BG-approved FUNdamentals stuff where they do two circuits- one of jumping over stuff, one of balancing, or whatever the theme is that week. The have no rec/team division, you join, and move up as you get the skills. If they find a kid at any point they thing has the talent to go elite they send them over to the big HPC club, but the rest all get the same training. It's far, far busier with many older kids hanging around to compete and coach.

 

[Ex member]

I wonder if the elite track system leads to high drop out rates too. In the US everyone's on the same path, and even as a 10 year old level 5 you can see that you work, get to L6, L7...elite. It's within your control. In the UK you're at the mercy of the coaches and being in front of the right coach at the right time- first you've got to make it out of rec, then picked for the elite track...by the time you're 9 or 10 if you aren't on the radar it's likely you'll be left in grades or regionals for your gymnastics career. You're pretty much working your @rse off waiting for someone to notice you.

Dd has been noticed, just a matter of seeing what happens over the next few weeks, I will be having another meeting with the head coach if I hear nothing, I was encouraged by him to grab hold of him again if I have heard nothing. Dd's path has been a unusual one, starting in pre school gymnastics completing all her pre school proficiency badges before she needed to and then sitting out of the next badge class as she had nothing to do, then moving to rec when she started school and worked her way through the proficiency core badges and completed them at 6 years old. What hurt dd was that the term she started school the pre school gym class started an advanced class and when she started rec we had the head coach leave within months as well the the WAG girls coach leave at the same time leaving everything up in the air, we got a new head coach and technical director and new groups were started and dd took up cheer leading and got selected for the squad as soon as she was old enough, dd dropped out of that within months due to her young age and her love for gymnastics, fast forward 6 months and we are waiting to get her in more advanced classes at gymnastics.

I did noticed a high drop out in the young development classes where only one remained out of 8 who originally started, I am not sure why they dropped out, maybe lost interest or just didn't like the more high paced classes with conditioning.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

I agree @Faith a one scheme system like the US one would be more transparent. It seems a bit ridiculous that a child could in theory compete Level 4, Grade 12 or Grade 8 with pretty much the same skills ! It just depends which track you gym is on.

 

[Uglybetty]

Annoyed at the lack of stats on how many girls compete at various compulsory levels in the uk, I started to try and roughly work it out myself. The start list for level 4 in our region had 12 names. At level 3 it dropped to 10 names. If you assume roughly comparable figures across the 10 English regions that gives you a field of around 120 at level 4 and 100 at level 3. No idea how accurate that is though. Nor do I have the foggiest idea how many do level 2.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

In my region 4 has 7 girls, 3 has 9 girls, what you need is historical data to compare.

Grade 8 - 38
Grade 7 - 24
Grade 6 - 11
Grade 5 - 7

however it doesn't say who does it in or out of age.

 

[Uglybetty]

Just had a thought margo....it might be worth looking in 2014 to see if the new flexibility re ages has an impact on numbers (especially at level 3).

 

[Iwannabemargo]

I haven't seen the new rules as no-one in my county trains elite, is it tough ?

 

[vbbf]

Gymnatter has the results for levels for most regions if you want to compare the number of gymnasts for each level in all the regions.

 

[Uglybetty]

Harder skills (so I'm told) but you can do levels 3, 2 & 1 at any age. Difficult to suss what that means in reality. I've heard some people say its to deliberately narrow the field earlier but I disagree ( because you wouldn't do the whole "out of age" thing if that was the case). I think it's designed to give kids who start a little bit later a chance.

 

[Uglybetty]

I just dug a bit deeper into our regions compulsory levels results.

Of the 8 girls who were 2012 level 5s....only 4 went on to do level 4 in 2013 (50%) the other 6 doing that level jumped straight in at level (perhaps having previously done club grades).

Of the 12 girls who were 2012 level 4s....only 7 went on to do level 3 (59%) and 3 new girls jumped straight in at that level.

I've always loved challenging assumptions/perceptions.

 

[JBS]

• You are trying to access from a non-authorized domain. (www.chalkbucket.com)

That is the error I am getting when I click the link? BG is blocking us???

 

[Iwannabemargo]

I got that too, but if you then click on the article it downloads okay