Athlete Progression

We try very hard to ensure that each and every child is training at a level that they are both ready for and allows them to continue their development in Athletics.

In order to achieve this we have set up a number of progression steps that will take athletes all the way from their first trial session in the Kestrels club hopefully right through to training and competing as senior athletes within our more advanced training groups on a Tuesday and Thursday night, some of whom have gone on to international level.

To be objective and fair we base this on a points system. It is a little involved, to ensure athletes progress through each stage as and when they are fully ready.  We hope this provides each athlete a way to track progress and potentially move through our system in a way that suits them.

Points are achieved through the following ways: 

• 1 point for each 6 months done in Kestrels (3 months if attending twice a week)
• 2 points for each year in school the athlete is in (e.g. Year 7 gains 14 points) . 
• 1 point if orange badge standard achieved, 2 points for blue badge standard achieved etc, up to 7 points for Gold.  These can be achieved in Kestrel Challenge or official races.
• 7 points if time achieved for Powerof10 rankings (we count the easier of Pof10 ranking for the age group athletes are in Gold standards, 8 points for finishing in top 300 from previous year performance, and 9 points for a top 100 performance.  For these higher points - qualified officials are needed.  All matches with qualified officials appear on www.thepowerof10.info - so to get more than 7/8 points, the result must appear here.
• 0.1 point for every performance an athlete has on Powerof10.  We use this as our measure of competitive experience. (excludes parkruns)

See below for the number of points needed to become a High Flyer or to progress to one of our Development groups beyond Kestrels.