Your child’s development plan
Your child’s plan is a season-long conversation with their coach. They start by rating their own game, the coach sets two or three goals from it, and the work in between is where the improvement happens.
A development plan is how the club turns training into progress for one player. It names the two or three things your child is working on right now, why they matter to the way the club plays, and exactly what to do about them at training and on match day. It sits under Plan in the app, and it's the one part of Clubhouse that is about your child's game rather than the club's calendar.
The plan works best as a conversation. Your child says how they see their own game, the coach gives their read, and the two of them keep talking about it all season. Your part is to help that conversation happen.
New to the club this season? Plan reads Milan's plan starts with the coach until the programme's plans begin. Nothing is missing. Here's how the first plan unfolds.
- Wait for the invitation. The club invites Milan to rate his own game when the plans begin.
- Rate his game together, under It starts with your child's own view.
- Let the coach build the plan, under While the coach builds the plan. You're told when it's published.
- Read the plan, under Reading the plan, then keep the goals moving between reviews.
- Book the review when the block ends, under Each block ends with a review.
- Plan is in the bottom bar on your phone, and in the sidebar on a computer. It only appears when one of your children is in a programme that runs development plans.
- If the plan hasn't started yet, the tab tells you what stage it's at. Before the season it reads Milan's plan starts with the coach, with a How does my child's plan start? link to this guide, and once the programme's plans are under way it reads Milan's plan is on its way.
- Your child can use their own login, or you can do it together on yours. The coach can see which, so there's no wrong answer.
Every plan starts with the player rating their own game. A player who has said in their own words what they want to improve owns the plan that follows, and the coach gets a far better starting point than a blank page.
The screens on this page come from one family with two boys in the programme: Luca, who is doing his self-assessment, and his younger brother Milan, whose plan is already published.
The invite arrives as a notification under your child's name, Self-assessment ready for Luca Salib, and a banner on Home says it's time. It takes about ten minutes. It's due ten days after the invite, and if it isn't finished you'll get a reminder three days out and another on the day.
The self-assessment works through the four corners of the game one at a time (1): Technical, Tactical, Physical and Psych & Social. Every question has the same three honest answers (2):
| Answer | What it means |
|---|---|
| Strength | You consistently do this well. |
| Building | You can do this most of the time. |
| Focus area | You want to work on this. |
If your child had a plan last season, a question that was asked then shows a reminder of the answer given, starting Last season you said: and then the rating, such as Building. Each person only ever sees their own answer from last season, never anyone else's, and nothing is filled in for them. It's there so your child can see how their game has moved, not to copy.
Anything your child marks as a focus area asks them to say why, and they need to choose at least one before they can finish. That's deliberate: the reason is what the coach reads most closely. Answers save as you go, so it's fine to stop and come back. When it's done, tap Send to coach.
Encourage honesty over modesty. A player who rates everything a strength gives the coach nothing to work with, and one who is hard on themselves will see the coach's read and find out they're better than they thought.
Once it's sent, the app confirms Luca's assessment is complete. The coach now goes through every question and makes their own call, chooses the focus areas for this block, and builds a goal for each one from the club's curriculum. The technical director then approves the plan.
There's nothing for you to do while that happens, and nothing to see until it's ready. When it's published, you'll get IDP published for and your child's name. Milan's is below.
The published plan has three tabs: Assessment, My Goals and Reviews.
Assessment sets your child's view beside the coach's across the four corners (1). Each row counts the strengths and focus areas in that corner (2). Tap one to see the individual ratings. Where the two views differ, the app says so, for example You rated this still building · Sam sees it as a strength. Those differences are the best part of the plan to talk about at home, because they're where a player learns how the coach sees them. If the coach has left your child a message, it sits at the top of this tab. When the coaching team writes about the plan as a whole, those messages sit here too, under Messages from the coaching team, and the notification for one, headed with the writer's name and your child's, opens this tab. They're for reading, not replying: to answer, share an update on a goal.
My Goals lists this block's goals. Tap one to open it.
The opening lines say what the goal is and why it matters. Below that, At training (1) is what your child works on in sessions, and Every match (2) is the job they take into each game. Why this goal connects it to the way the club plays. If your child can tell you their goals without opening the app, the plan is doing its job.
When the coach has carried a goal on from last season, the goal opens with a Carried on from 2026 tag at the top. The goal is written for this season, but the coach chose to keep working on the same part of your child's game.
This is what makes a plan work. A goal that nobody mentions between reviews rarely moves. One the player keeps coming back to, with a coach who replies, usually does.
Open a goal and tap Share an update… to log some progress:
- I worked on this in training (1) records a session your child put the work in, with a short comment on what they did and how it felt.
- Rate how a game went (2) asks how the focus went in a particular match, and a comment is required. After a match your child played, the app can prompt this with Full time — record your result.
- Add a video clip attaches evidence from My moments, Coach clips or Highlights, a link, or your own sideline footage (MP4, MOV or WEBM, up to 200MB). A clip of exactly the thing the goal describes shows progress better than any description can.
The coach is notified of every update and replies on the goal, and a short reply from the coach to something your child logged goes a long way. After a session or match the app may also offer a Quick check-in, three taps from Not yet through Getting there to Nailed it.
You can delete your own update until the coach replies to it. After that it stays, because it's part of the conversation.
When a block's review opens, the plan asks for your family's view with Have your say (or Review together). The Reviews tab keeps each block's outcome, and See full review opens the detail. Where the coach meets families face to face, you can book the meeting in the app.
If a goal doesn't fit or an assessment doesn't match what you see, there's a link at the bottom of the plan: Something doesn't look right? It opens Share a concern. Write a short note and tap Send to coach. It goes to the coach and the programme's technical director, and it doesn't change the plan. It starts a conversation, and the coach will be in touch.
- The self-assessment went in, in your child's own words, with at least one focus area and the reason for it.
- Your child can name their current goals without opening the app.
- At least one update has gone onto a goal this block, and the coach has replied.
- Where the coach's read differed from your child's, you've talked about why.
Last reviewed 8 Oct 2026
Was this page helpful?