This Squad takes athletes aged from 11-13 years (school years 6 to 8) and its objective is to improve all-round physical development and enhance the athlete’s speed, strength, mobility, co-ordination and endurance. The programme aims to achieve this by using the different athletic events covering running, jumping and throwing as a vehicle to develop these skills. There is also an emphasis on increasing the training volume from one to two sessions per week to ensure that they are fit enough to move into a ‘specialist squad’ at the age of 13+ years.

By the age of 13+ years the athlete should be ready to move into one of the specialist squads where their continued development will be overseen by a new lead coach: Endurance and Middle Distance; Sprinting and Jumping; Throwing; Pole Vault. However, this is done to provide the athlete with the focus they will need to improve at their preferred or best event. It is not done to the exclusion of all other events and athletes with a talent for several events are encourage to keep this up by working with other Squad coaches by arrangement with their lead coach

As athletes mature, they need to train more if they are to reach their potential, so we encourage additional runs to be made on 1 or 2 of the days when there is no training.