2021-2022 Travel Program Assessment Schedule

Players are placed on travel teams according to their current level of soccer development.  We strongly encourage all players who are interested in being on a travel team to attend the assessment session so that we can make appropriate placements. In the event that a girl is unable to attend an assessment session, placement will be based solely on the player’s last coach evaluation, and/or whatever other data is available to the travel committee. There are no “make up” assessment sessions.  To participate in assessments, a player must be registered for the upcoming season.

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IMPORTANT – Register for and attend the assessment for the grade that your daughter will enter in Fall 2021 (e.g. current 2nd graders attend the 3rd grade travel assessment on 5/18/21).

Fall 2021 Schedule

About Assessments

Assessments are used for travel team placement and Academy team selection.

Travel players are placed on teams that range from division 1 (highly skilled, highly competitive) to division 4 (less skilled, more recreational). The primary determinant for which team a girl is placed on is the evaluation from her prior coach. The information gathered from the assessment session is secondary. We know that girls sometimes have a bad day, and an assessment result that is inconsistent with a girl’s coach evaluation will be discounted in the selection process. There is no minimum bar that has to be met. All girls of the appropriate age who register for travel are placed on teams.

In the event that a girl is unable to attend an assessment session, placement will be based solely on the players last coach evaluation, and/or whatever other data is available to the travel committee. There are no “make up” assessment sessions.

Registered players will receive an email confirmation several days before the assessments sessions, including time and place of the assessment. In case of bad weather, check the NGS website, or call the fields hotline at to find out if assessments have been postponed.

Newton Girls Soccer goes to great lengths to ensure that every girl has the opportunity to try out for a team and to evaluate all players consistently. This process involves a degree of subjectivity, and because some girls inevitably are not placed on the team that they would like. The philosophy of NGS is that each girl deserves the chance to try out for and be placed on a team on an annual basis. Efforts are made to avoid “tracking” of girls and to recognize that a young girl’s skills and motivations change over short periods of time.

The structure of assessments includes a technical warm-up, small-sided games and larger sided scrimmages which will evaluate players in the four pillars of the game – Technical, Tactical, Physical and Psychological. Each of these games is watched by a group of evaluators who are experienced soccer coaches or players and, when possible, are not directly connected or interested in the age group trying out. Also, the evaluators are not involved in selecting the actual teams within the age group, but are assigned to provide an impartial evaluation. These evaluations are coupled with the written evaluations of spring coaches to be used during the player selection process. Coaches’ evaluations from prior seasons are not used in this process, so that girls start each season with a “clean slate.”

The age group coordinators organize the assessments in a way that will be fun and will lessen anxiety among the girls and their parents. Parents are asked to stay at a distance from the field and to refrain from cheering or making any comments. Any type of assessment involves some level of anxiety, and it is important to have the support of parents to keep things in perspective.