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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Kick-starting new ideas in sports education

By Xu Wenwen | March 15, 2016, Tuesday | Print Edition

SOCCER coach Gareth Haylins, who has a UEFA “B” qualification, began a new job recently as a teacher at Hangzhou Qiuzhi Primary School.

Haylins, 29, a British citizen born in Vienna, is one of the five experienced soccer coaches sent to Hangzhou schools under a project aimed at improving the quality of football teaching. The program is jointly sponsored by the City Football Group and China’s Ministry of Education.

“In England football is well developed, but in Asia it is developing, and that means lots of opportunities,” said Haylins, who will remain at the school for three years.

He has a Master’s degree in sports coaching from the University of Central Lancashire in the UK and has achieved FA Level 1 and 2 coaching badges. He worked at a youth soccer organization in the US state of New Jersey, then taught football in Beijing for four years before coming to Hangzhou.

The government pays the majority of the salary for such coaches, while resident schools provide accommodation. Haylins is assisted in coursework by a translator and a Chinese football teacher.

The Ministry of Education started the Football Feature School Plan last year, with the goal of designating 20,000 schools in the country as “football feature” schools. Hangzhou has 14 such schools at both primary and middle levels.

Qiuzhi Primary School headmaster Chen Qunyun told Shanghai Daily that “football feature” means more than just kicking a ball around a field. The culture of the sport also appears in math, Chinese, English, and history classes.

“We don’t expect every student to become a good player, but we do want to popularize the sports culture and instill interest in it,” said Chen.

Several years ago, the school made football a compulsory class for every pupil, in part to reduce obesity, in part to improve eyesight. All the school’s physical education teachers hold football coaching licenses.

The school sponsors an annual Football Culture Festival that includes matches between class teams.

Sport was not that important in Chinese schools several decades ago. Math, Chinese history and other academic subjects were considered more important than physical education for youngsters.

Nowadays, sports are considered important both by schools and by parents who send their children to extracurricular weekend classes to prepare them for exams that determine who gets into the best schools.

Zhu Xiaofei, a 25-year-old primary school teacher, said she has seen sports becoming an important component in these weekend classes.

“They have gone from just a couple, each with about 50 pupils, to more than 10,” she said.

Trevor Lamb, an American coach at local Sinobal Football Club, said around 1,000 children come to play football at the club every week.

Li Yongliang, who lives in Tonglu, drives five hours, three times a week to take his son to football training in urban Hangzhou.

His son’s team at the Hangzhou Football Management Center is comprised of 10- and 11-year-old boys. The players are selected from all Hangzhou schools. They train after school and play matches on weekends.

Many parents, just like Li, ferry their children to outdoor training sessions and then stand around, sometimes in chilly wind, for two hours before driving the players back home.

“Today, if children do not participate in some extracurricular sports classes, they barely get any daily exercise,” said Li, who recalled that exercise when he was young involved farmwork, household chores and long walks to school.

Many parents said sports help their children develop a sense of teamwork, sportsmanship and confidence, and improves their concentration in class.

After-class sports sessions are relatively new in China. In the past, promising young talent was plucked from different schools, then sent to boarding schools specializing in sports training.

“The traditional mode used to work well in terms of forming winning teams, but the more eclectic method that is evolving gives kids more freedom of choice,” said Guo Chen, one team coach.

Cha Seungwoo, a coach from South Korea, said his country underwent a similar trend 10 years ago. A product of the change, he studied football in England for four years.

“Before, South Korean players trained something like 10 times a week, which is too much,” said Cha. “The international training method we are now using is more effective, and young players don’t forfeit other studies that may lead to careers outside sports.”

Foreign coaches who come to China to teach face a certain degree of culture shock.

“Chinese children are more attentive because football is new to them,” said Haylins. “And their parents are more solicitous. They always rush to the field if their child gets hit by ball or falls to the ground. I don’t think the children want their parents to be so overly protective.”

Lamb agreed, saying that “Chinese parents are too worried about their kids getting hurt.”

Teaching methods also differ from the West.

Physical education teacher Zhang Yuwen, who assists Haylins in class, said the Chinese way is to first teach youngsters how to kick the ball, and that is repeated over and over.

But Haylins, he said, starts out by getting the children excited about football, then slowly introduces practice sessions.

“The Chinese tend to be good at individual sports, while the European method is more about teamwork,” Haylins said. “We are trying to combine the best of both.”

Hangzhou


 

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