Travel Program Assessments

Players who are interested in joining a travel team are strongly encouraged to attend assessments.

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

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. 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.  Registration opens in mid-April for the following season.

Assessments are similar to a large practice.

Upon arriving, players will check in and receive a number and a pinnie, then break into smaller groups for the assessment.

We organize the assessments in a way that will be fun and will lessen anxiety among the girls and their parents. 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. Evaluators are not involved in selecting the actual teams within the age group; they are tasked with providing an impartial evaluation. These evaluations are coupled with the written evaluations from each player’s current coach 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.”

Once assessments are underway, parents will have a brief meeting with representatives of the NGS Travel Committee. We’ll present an overview of the travel program, discuss how players are assigned to teams, and answer questions. 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.

There are no cuts.

Travel players are placed on teams according to their current level of soccer development. Teams 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 on time for the travel program are placed on a team.

WE DO NOT ACCEPT FRIEND REQUESTS IN THE TRAVEL PROGRAM. IF THAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR CHILD, REGISTER FOR THE CITY PROGRAM