Koach · Volleyball practice plans
A 12-week youth volleyball practice plan in three phases
This is the only plan in the series where a youth team learns to attack before it learns to defend an attack. Twelve evenings buy three phases of four. The first eight sessions run straight through the full youth programme; sessions nine to twelve then skip a phase — defensive posture, falling safely and blocking are not in here — and take the fourth block instead.
That is a decision about what young teams actually lose points to. Rallies at this level die on the first and second contact, not on an unblocked hit. So the closing phase gets four full evenings rather than one game to finish on: a night on setting, a night on calling and covering, a night on transition, and a tournament.
What your team will learn
- Move to the ball early and stop before making contact
- Pass forearm and overhead to a target, high rather than hard
- Serve overhand with a fixed routine they repeat every time
- Approach left-right-left and swing above their highest point
- Call the ball before touching it, and cover the hitter
- Play three contacts every rally, digging straight into attack
How the plan is built
Ball in hand
Ball control, the forearm pass and overhead passing
Over the net
Serving, the approach and the arm swing
Playing together
Setting, calling, transition and the full game
The sessions
One line per session: the focus and what you work on that evening. The full session, with timings and every drill, is in the PDF.
-
1
Everybody on the ball
Ball contact and court feel
Game: Triples tournament 3v3 -
2
The platform
The forearm pass
Game: Queen of the court -
3
Hands like a basket
Overhead passing
Game: Four-on-four complete -
4
Moving to the ball
Getting to the ball early
Game: King's game rotation -
5
A serve you can repeat
A serve that works every time
Game: Serve + free ball wash game -
6
Serving to a zone
Serving with a target and under pressure
Game: Serve duel six on five -
7
Left-right-left
The attack approach
Game: Five-on-five full rally -
8
Hit it above you
The arm swing
Game: Bonus-point game -
9
The second ball
Setting
Game: Bingo-Bango-Bongo -
10
Call and cover
Communication and coverage
Game: USA drill -
11
From defense to attack
Transition
Game: Speedball 6-6 -
12
Playing it all together
The complete rally
Game: Match with rotation
Where this block fits in a season
Place this block by the match calendar, not by the term. Weeks one to eight are individual work and barely show on a Saturday, so put them where results matter least — pre-season, or a run of friendlies. The last four change how the team plays a match, and weeks eleven and twelve are the only sessions that put a full six on court, so line those up with your busiest run of fixtures. A group training twice a week will be through all twelve by half term; take the sixteen-week plan instead.
What you see at the end
Twelve evenings leave a squad that can keep a ball alive on its own side and finish a rally on purpose. Every player has set at least ten balls, middles included, so the second contact is no longer one child's job. Every player has won a point with a tip or a roll shot, which is the moment a young hitter stops swinging at everything. Coverage is close under the hitter rather than politely two metres behind. And when nothing goes right, the first ball still goes high and to the middle.
The drills in this plan
Every drill has its own page with an animation you can play phase by phase.
Questions coaches ask
We leave out falling technique and blocking. Is that a safety risk?
Not at this stage, because nothing in these twelve sessions drills going to the floor. The risk turns up when players start chasing balls they cannot reach, and that is a match habit rather than a drill one. If your team already dives in games, run the sixteen-week plan instead — its third phase is four evenings on posture, rolling and sprawling.
Session twelve is a tournament where nobody gets corrected. With only twelve evenings, can I spare one?
It is the session that tells you whether the other eleven worked. Everyone plays a position that is not theirs, you coach only what goes well, and the group finishes in one circle. Take the correction out and you find out what the players do without you, which is what happens on a Saturday. It is also the evening they remember.
Our slot is sixty minutes, not ninety. What do I cut?
Cut the middle drill. Each session is a warm-up, a short core block, three drills and a closing game, and the middle one is the application drill — it extends what the first has just taught rather than introducing anything. Keep the closing game whatever else goes: it is where the session's rule lives, and at this age it is why they came.
Put this plan in the app
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