The Ref Stop

How do you treat it?

WalterPinkman

WalterPinkman

Active Member
Level 6 Referee
Hi all,

I have a bit of a situation. If you can tell by my profile I'm 16 and in Year 11(the last year of high school:)). For my GCSE PE I have a chance to get a good grade for my final result by officiating a football game. This game is on Friday and is my school's year 7 home fixture. My question was do I treat it like any other game as if I do not know the teams who are playing? Are cards still allowed etc.?

Thanks,
Ben
 
The Ref Stop
Ben, speak to your teacher who will be assessing you. Some users on the forum will insist full laws apply, which I agree with to a point. However, remember that the students, parents and teachers are not expecting you to caution everything which would be a caution in an open age game.

Talk to your teacher before the assessment day and ask them whether cards are usually used (which they'll say "no" to), then ask whether the expectation from them is for you to card players for things or whether having a discussion afterward highlighting the potential situations you could've used cards, would be a more suitable method of going about it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SM
Hi Ben - I am a teacher (maths, not PE!) but I referee a lot of school games (between ours, and other schools)

There is a bit of a convention* that cards are rarely, if ever used, but instead the coaches (teachers) will sub off a player if they are getting close to - or should have - been carded. It may only be for a few minutes (rolling subs) or maybe for longer, but is quite effective.

Have a chat with your teacher who takes the Year 7 team, tell him that you are being assessed for your GCSE and ask if he is happy to apply the convention above. Believe it or not, most teachers are human after all and I am sure that he will want you to do well in your assessment as well as win the game! Also ask if he could make sure the teacher/coach from the other school could be told that you are refeering as an assesment for your GCSE.

A useful tip when ref-ing school games is when you need to speak to a player, use your positioning such that you move yourself & the player towards his coach on the sideline so that the coach can hear what you are saying. Most coaches are teachers first and coaches second and will help you out by speaking to the player themselves or subbing them off. After all, they wouldn't accept poor behaviour in the classroom and the pitch is simply an outdoor classroom.

Best of luck. We've had a lad referee a number of games this season as part of his A-Level (or BTEC?) and it has gone well for him, hope it does for you. Let us know how you get on!

*Happy to discuss whether or not this convention is right, but not, please, on this thread: here we have a young lad about to take an important exam, lets help him & not derail the thread.
 
Hi Ben

I will make the assumption that for this game, you are being assessed by your GCSE PE teacher as I was for this, rather than a qualified assessor.

I'm bound to face some backlash for this, but it's important to remember that some aspects of the game will have to be officiated differently in order to satisfy your teacher, whose knowledge of the laws is likely to be lacking ever so slightly (Mine was and he plays Step 4 football...).

Some things may be considered by an assessor to be perfectly correct (e.g. Not allowing the wrong colour undershorts) but you'll likely find that this will do you no favours with a teacher. There is a 'safety and risk assessment' part which obviously schools will take very seriously, so consider this if there are injuries which you may not stop for in a 'normal' game.

Of course, once the game starts, 'normal service' resumed, but, having reffed quite a few school games, I'm with @RefJef on the 'cards convention', though I would always exclude SFP, VC and OFFINABUS.

Clear communication and explanation to the players is a sure way to secure a few 'easy marks' if you like.

In case you haven't seen it, I attach the criteria that was used two years ago (don't think anything changes until next year??). image.png
Hope that makes sense
 
I did my PE GCSE in 2014 and as part of my assessment I did badminton officiating.

As this forms part of the qualification it should be video recorded by your teacher as their marking is open to scrutiny by an external examiner from the exam board. For another sport in my assessment I played football and the game was recorded by my teacher as proof of her marks.

As such I will say referee the game as any other, applying correct sanctions if required. It is mandatory for the examiner to know what they're on about and if they pick up errors in your refereeing they're well within their rights to alter your marks
 
If you've got an external moderator there it's got to be by the book.
As already said we as teachers don't card in schools football - but once we reach the final stages of knockout with neutral refs then it's normal rules all round. No teacher is going to want to see you slip up and I'm sure both coaches will be happy for you to do what you need to get right to the top of that mark scheme.
One small tip - the other side of teachers not carding is that we can interfere quite quickly if our students are misbehaving so make sure they know you might want them to back off a bit.
Best of luck.
 
I did this for my PE GCSE last year and just refereed like it was any other game, my PE teacher who assessed knew how I refereed and accepted it as it was. I think if I tried to referee to a different set of criteria it would have gone wrong. I did caution as well and have for a number of school games over the past couple of years, though in fairness you'll probably be okay with year 7s. Didn't do me any problem as I got top marks. Don't recall any videoing though for GCSE.

I've got my A level assessment tomorrow and I've already had to supply video evidence for that, gave them Brighton/Reading and just one game to do tomorrow.

Good luck and keep to your game, what are your other sports for assessment? I did boxing and swimming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top