A six-module curriculum to train more than 100 educators, youth workers and coaches to teach traditional games, starting with a training of trainers in Türkiye.
We aim to train more than 100 educators, youth workers and coaches so that they can bring a traditional game into a playground, a sports hall or a youth centre. The training curriculum is already structured into six modules, and the first training of trainers begins in September in Türkiye. Knowing the game is not enough: you have to know how to teach it.
The starting point: nobody teaches how to teach these games
Before designing anything, we asked what was missing. The three national reports and the transnational State of the Art report, consolidated in April 2026, gave an uncomfortable answer.
In Spain, Türkiye and Poland there are no structured or accredited training pathways in traditional sports and games. Not in any of the three countries.
Cultural recognition exists, but it stops there. In Poland these games are absent from the national curriculum and from teacher training. In the Basque Country they are regulated and deeply rooted, and in Türkiye there is a strong federation ecosystem, but in no case does this translate into certified training.
If you work with young people, you know the consequence: someone asks you for a "local" activity, you search online and find a nice video with no instructions, no safety notes and no hint of how to include someone who arrives in a wheelchair. That is the gap we are filling.
Six modules: from the origins of a game to the community that sustains it
The training curriculum is organised into six modules that move from the cultural to the practical and end up in the local community:
M1 · Introduction to traditional sports and games. Where they come from, what they mean to their communities and why many are disappearing. By the end, you will be able to describe at least three traditional games from the partner countries and explain their cultural value.
M2 · Rules and safety guidelines. The rules of these games are rarely written down — that is both their charm and their risk. You will learn to carry out a risk assessment for an indoor or outdoor session and to apply safeguarding protocols with children and people with disabilities.
M3 · Inclusive adaptations for excluded groups. This module explores the difference between the medical and social models of disability, and the Universal Design for Learning framework. The question stops being "can this person play our game?" and becomes "how do we change the game so that they can play?".
M4 · Community engagement strategies. If you prepare a brilliant session and nobody turns up, it hasn't happened. You start by mapping what the community already has — who still remembers these games, which school has interested teachers, which neighbourhood association already runs activities — rather than listing what it lacks.
M5 · Practice and peer feedback. Here everything that has gone before is put to the test by leading a practical session in front of your peers.
M6 · Digital tools and the I-PLAY platform. A guided, unhurried orientation so that those with less digital confidence come away feeling as sure of themselves as everyone else.
Knowing, doing, applying: the three levels of each module
Learning outcomes are not written in the abstract. Each module organises them into three levels:
Knowing: the cultural context, historical roots and social impact of the specific game.
Doing: inspecting the space, checking the equipment, flagging a rule infringement, responding to an emergency, designing and trialling adapted rules.
Applying: leading sessions that protect participants' dignity, prevent discrimination among peers and create genuine inclusion.
The core material already exists: the 12 game sheets completed in English, four per country, with cultural and historical context, step-by-step instructions, inclusive adaptations, safety notes and learning outcomes.
Learning through play: 1h30 sessions and peer observation
At the kick-off meeting in March 2026, in Donostia and Errenteria, we decided on the format: online workshops last 1 hour and 30 minutes. It is not an arbitrary figure: it fits into a working afternoon, requires no travel and leaves time to explain a game, watch it and try it out.
The practice module draws on Kolb's experiential learning cycle: you live the experience, reflect on it, draw conclusions and test them on your next attempt. The reflective journal kept during the module is not a notebook of impressions; it is a tool for professional development.
Feedback also has its own method: the SBI model — situation, behaviour, impact. The observer must name the exact moment, describe the specific action and explain the effect it had. Without that structure, feedback boils down to a vague "well done" or an equally vague criticism.
Assessment is light and honest: a five-minute prior-knowledge check via a link or QR code, another five-minute feedback form at the end and, for the training team, a guided observation questionnaire during the session.
The first step already has a date: from 7 to 11 September 2026, trainers from the three countries will meet in Biga (Çanakkale, Türkiye) for the training of trainers. From there will come the team that will cascade the training in each country.
Inclusion as a competence, not an add-on
A training course can devote ten minutes to inclusion and change nothing. We approach it the other way round: designing at least one concrete adaptation of a traditional game for a specific group is one of the learning outcomes of the curriculum itself.
The curriculum states in writing which groups it is adapted for and how: people with disabilities, migrants and refugees, women and girls, and young people facing economic, educational or geographical disadvantage.
And the adaptation notes are concrete, not statements of intent. With groups that do not share a language, verbal explanation is replaced by physical demonstration, and four basic commands — stop, go, switch, well done — are learnt in the group's languages before starting; each person is then invited to name the equivalent game from their own tradition, so that learning someone else's game turns into exchanging games. With teenagers, rules on language and team selection are agreed before play, because expressions such as "you play like a girl" crop up without the group recognising them as hurtful. And in groups facing financial hardship, nothing in the session — clothing, equipment, transport, food — should mark out who has and who has not.
The materials follow the same logic. Local, low-cost equipment — stones, corncobs, ropes — is prioritised so that money is no barrier to entry, with every item checked before each session. Videos are used only with the written informed consent of those who appear in them, never with identifiable data on minors, and always with subtitles or visual aids. And translated materials are written in plain language, with rules shown as pictograms, because translation has to bridge reading levels as well as languages.
Start here
A traditional game survives when someone knows how to teach it well to a new group. That person could be you, and you don't need to be a heritage specialist to get started.
Visit i-play.abarka.org, explore the Training Centre and follow us on social media: that is where we will announce calls for workshops in your country.