At Rouse Hill Anglican College Netball Club, we are a very welcoming and supportive group and open to anyone who wishes to participate in our umpiring program.
As a club, we follow and adhere to the Baulkham Hills Shire Netball Association’s learning and development pathway when taking on brand new umpires.
The program starts off with the Red Award which is a fully theoretical element of the pathway that teaches junior umpires the rules of netball along with the basics of umpiring.
This then progresses to a Blue Award which is the first practical umpiring step for learning umpires. The association holds a Blue Award Gala Day before the start of every season for the purpose of getting brand new umpires out on court to give them a go at umpiring themselves first hand. The friendly environment of this day makes it an easy transition into taking these first steps into umpiring games with the full support of our mentoring team.
After this there is the White Award. This award is achieved after a learner umpire has completed four competition games. During this time, mentoring and support is provided throughout each game to ensure umpires are putting their best foot forward and are able to possibly learn something every game.
Next, there is a Green Badge which is a skills and abilities based award. This badge is awarded when an umpire has a solid understanding of the game day basics, a foundational understanding of the rules of netball and how this is implemented in a competition game.
Then there is the Gold Badge which is the last step in the association’s development pathway before reaching nationally recognised badges. This is another skills based award which is a step up from the previous badge and is typically awarded when an umpire is confident and proficient on senior (afternoon) games.
After the BHSNA development pathway, there are the nationally recognised badges of a National C Badge, National B Badge, National A Badge and so on.
At our netball club we have had many success stories with umpires moving through these awards and even being successful in obtaining a nationally recognised badge, which for a small club is something we are very proud of. We have had our umpires represent our club and association at a number of events such as Netball NSW Metro League, Netball NSW Summer Series, both Netball NSW Junior and Senior State Titles, countless Junior Representative Carnivals, Selections, Trials and so on.
Our team white is a very supportive group who thrive of seeing our junior umpires succeed. We cannot wait to continue to develop our clubs new and emerging umpires to be the best they can be.
For any questions or queries around umpiring at our club, please contact our RHAC Netball Umpires Convenors, Shari Millar and Eleanor Dunlop via [email protected]
