Parents Training groups by skill or level?

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dancingimmie

Proud Parent
A comment on a different thread had me wondering which is better, training groups by skill or level?

Dd's gym used to be very strict about group levels and numbers. You trained with your level and only 8 gymnasts per group period the end. Now the HC seems to be trying a different approach. He's been mixing girls up. My dd thinks it's based on what needs to be worked on, gymnasts will sometimes even switch groups when they rotate to a different event.

My dd doesn't care what group she's in as long as she gets to do gymnastics but it's peaked my curiosity. How does your gym organize practice? Pros/cons?
 
Our compulsories are grouped strictly by level but the groupings do seem to vary at each practice. Sometimes it seems the stronger girls are all together and sometimes it seems random. We are just starting practice at the new levels for summer and the teams have grown (level 3 had 22 last year and will have 31 this year I believe) so we will see how summer goes. Our optionals are divided into groups A, B, and C and I honestly have no idea what that means....lol. But doesn't seem to be strictly by level.
 
Every artistic team my DD has been on has been grouped by level. T&T we've seen grouped by level, skill, or age. Current gym is grouped by convenience. There are a list of team practices and parents choose which ones work best for them. Obviously that's my favorite. Ha!
 
Ideally and in a perfect world, should be fluid enough so that the coach/gymmie ratio is good. And kids get what they need. And few kids need the same thing in every level, every event, all the time.

Just my kid as an example. She is higher skilled in beam compared to other girls in her same level, yet one of the weaker bar girls, middle of pack for floor, so could float between groups based on gymmie/coach needs of the day.

Can all gyms accomplish this. No.
 
Now that I think about it I think this is mostly only happening with the optionals, my dd and one other that are trying to go from 5 to 7. The one compulsory girl that is also getting moved from group to group just came from a very abusive coaching situation and I think they are keeping her with the super nice young girl coach as much as possible until she feels "safe".

That being said, I'm still curious. Skill or level based groups?
 
Compulsories are all by level. Optionals groups have some other factors considered too such as school hours, number of training hours, trajectories and bar settings. These things are different for each kid even within the same level so grouping by level only wouldn't really work.
 
Depends on the number of kids and number of coaches from a scheduling stand point. If many kids are working on the same skills, put them together if coaching is limited. If there are enough coaches to break them out further, go for it.
Other places do it differently.
 
We don't traditionally group by level here. The groups are usually formed when the kids first start on preteam (by age and skill level) and ideally they would stay together all the way to the top. Usually that doesn't happen and girls move between the groups. Bigger clubs have two parallel groups for each age group, like groups A and B for all the starting 5-6 year old preteam kids. The A team is for kids who have natural talent and who the coaches see going far and the group B is for "regular kids" who might want to do other sports as well and they may practice a little less. Smaller clubs may only start one preteam group each year and then combine age groups together when some quit later on. We regroup the gymnasts each year if needed and if we have two parallel groups for each age group we move the kids back and forth based on the motivation, work ethic, talent and success. The practice hours may vary within a level based on the group you are in.
 
We do a bit of both. We have "clubs" sometimes and those girls working on, for example, a kip would go to "Kip Club" and those working on BHS would go to the "BHS Club" and so on.
Other times, we group by level:
Newbie L3
L3/4
L4/5 and L5/6 (Depending on numbers, the L5/6 may train with the L6+)
Xcel Gold
L6+
 
I would say by age and level. That being said, it's more fluid in the higher optional groups. At that level, not everyone is working the same skills so levels per apparatus varies.
 
I see this in our homeschooling practices. All Level girls work together on one event, just working different skills
 
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Our gym seems to consider skill, level, and work ethic do develop groups. In compulsories there are groups that contain level 3-4, 4-5, pre-team-3, and we gave two separate optional groups. The level 4's that work with the 5's tend to be stronger and be able to complete drills and rotations without constant encouragement or over site. I'm kinda over analyzing how they create workout groups but I am happy that they try to sewerage our younger optionals from the older girls as much as possible. My DD is only 8 and some of the conversations the teenage optionals have are just not appropriate for her.
 
Ours is grouped by age and level in compulsories and then there's a larger group of optionals that train together with two coaches. Our gym doesn't rush so we don't have any exceptionally young optionals (youngest is 10 year old level 7s). Then there's a group of national level 10 and elite that train together.
My DDs group was a weird exception this year with a mix of levels 5-7 and ages 9-13 but the girls were tagged for special development so they grouped them together. They'll likely be levels 6/7-8 next season now.
 
Compulsory is grouped by level, then each level is split in half or so, into training groups based on ability (and in level 3, age to a point). Optionals all practice together, I'm not sure how they are grouped, since we are not that far yet.
 

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