By Cian O’Connell for gaa.ie

The ‘Leading Gaelic Games in Primary Schools’ summer course for teachers offered at the start of this month in the west of Ireland proved to be a significant success.

Tutors and coaches from Connacht GAA and some of the counties involved helped to deliver the blended course.

Damien Curley, recently appointed Connacht GAA Director of Hurling, was involved in the project, and acknowledges that there is a real willingness from teachers to acquire information. “We have to, at some stage, acknowledge that they do fantastic work, and always have, Curley says.

“There is a cohort of young and older teachers out there, who are still willing to give their time, to pass on the good and positive messages that hurling and football can give.”

The collaboration from coaches has helped deliver courses which the teachers enjoyed. “Basically, it is a mix of hurling, football, camogie, ladies football, rounders, and handball,” Curley explains.

“We’d give them an introduction to coaching as part of it. The model in the past was a five day face to face course. So, the teachers came in everyday from maybe half nine to half two. In recent years they came up with a new model where they’ve got an online blended course.

“You have two days face to face, at whatever venue in each of the counties, and there is an online module where you interact with discussion forums, and some research stuff online. They can do that in their own time. It is all signed off within two weeks, they receive certificates from both the department and from the GAA for completing the course.”

Working alongside the education centres in the participating counties is crucial according to Curley. “There is liaising with the education centres in each of the counties- Galway Education Centre, the same in Mayo and Roscommon, they’re the official conduit which the department runs the courses,” he says.

“Then there is a link with Connacht GAA – Galway GAA, Mayo GAA, and Roscommon GAA to run it. We get people to come in to help, for example I did an hour hurling with the Galway teachers on Monday, with the Mayo teachers on Tuesday, Dennis Carr would do the football, Kevin Johnson has been in, Billy McNicholas would do some of the football in Mayo.

“So, there is a joined up element, that is the beauty of it because it is a good promotional tool for the GAA.”

Having different coaches and voices involved is another important aspect. “That is the beauty of it,” Curley says. “You have a couple of benefits in it, there is good joined up thinking between all of the organisations as regards coaching these days. Rather than coaching the sport per se, we are also coaching the person.

“We would be trying to get that message across, an awful lot of the skills are multi transferable. The skills of handball can complement hurling, the skills of hurling can complement football. So, there is that element in it. You have different voices presenting meaning there is a nice bit of variety for the teachers, too.

“I think 24 was the max number and they were booked out in each of the three places. Traditionally we’d have run the courses, but they stopped during Covid times. They were revamped recently by the Coaching & Games Department in Croke Park.

“You have a couple of pilots, even though we’ve done them before, and we are experienced at doing them, but some pilots have been rolled out. These three counties were booked up to the max, so I’d say it will be rolled out on an even bigger model next year.”