Koach · Volleyball practice plans
8-week youth volleyball practice plan for beginners
Eight sessions is the shortest block here, and for a young group that is a feature. Four evenings on ball control, four with the ball going over the net, and nothing held over for a third phase. Nobody has to remember in November what was taught in September, and a player who joins in week three has missed one theme, not four. It is also about as long as young players stay with one idea.
The eight are not the catalogue's first eight. The second serving evening — serving to a zone, serve receive in a W — is taken out, and the whole-group session that normally falls in week sixteen is pulled forward to close the block. So the last night is a tournament: short matches, everyone against everyone, every player spending a rally in a position that is not theirs, and nobody coached on their mistakes.
What your team will learn
- Pass with a still platform, shoulders turned to the target
- Set overhead with hands above the forehead, feet underneath the ball
- Move on the first step, then recover to the middle
- Serve overhand with the same toss and routine every time
- Attack from a left-right-left approach, choosing hit, tip or roll
- Call the ball and play out three contacts, every rally
How the plan is built
Ball in hand
Ball control, the forearm pass and overhead passing
Over the net
Serving, the approach, the arm swing and a session of playing
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
Left-right-left
The attack approach
Game: Five-on-five full rally -
7
Hit it above you
The arm swing
Game: Bonus-point game -
8
Playing it all together
The complete rally
Game: Match with rotation
Where this block fits in a season
Put it where a group is newest. For most clubs that is the eight weeks after the September intake, and again after the winter, when a second wave turns up because a friend brought them along. It is short enough to run twice in one season with two different groups, which none of the longer plans allow. It also suits the run-up to a first friendly or a club tournament, since session eight is a tournament itself. A group that has already had a season together will outgrow it; start them at twelve.
What you see at the end
After eight evenings the group looks coached rather than supervised. Players rotate inside a drill without being told, collecting balls is part of the work rather than an interruption, and each of them has a reach mark on the wall from session seven with their own marker on it. Everybody has scored a point with a tip or a roll shot, which for most children is the first point they win with something other than force. Serving has a routine attached to it. Blocking, going to the floor and rotations are all still ahead: that is week nine onwards.
The drills in this plan
Every drill has its own page with an animation you can play phase by phase.
Questions coaches ask
Half the block goes by before anyone serves. Will the players not get bored?
They serve in week five, but they play in every session from week one. Each ball-control evening ends with a game — three against three on a halved court, then queen of the court — and the middle drill is usually already a competition. The measures help too: 150 touches in week one, the longest rally of the night written on the board in week two.
What do I actually need in the hall?
Less than it looks. Week one never uses a full court — it runs across the width, with a line of tape or a low net at hip height — so half a hall is enough to start. A clear stretch of wall does real work in weeks five and seven. Beyond that it is a ball per two players, cones, hoops and bibs.
Half my group has played before and half has never touched a ball. Does it still work?
Every drill in the PDF has an easier entry and a harder version, so one drill runs at two levels at once. In week one the beginners may catch the ball overhead and throw it before they play it on, while the rest count contacts out loud. The targets are personal rather than comparative, which matters more in a mixed group than the drill choice does.
Put this plan in the app
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