COACHING STRUCTURES

1. COACHING PLAN FOR WALES LAUNCH

In partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government, the Coaching Plan for Wales was formally launched on Tuesday 19th July. The Minister for Sport, Alun Pugh was in attendance. The launch is the start of some exciting developments in Coaching in Wales. The main thrust of the launch was about the fact that “Coaching is central to the development of sport at every level” (WAG/SCW Coaching Plan).

The main thrust of the coaching plan is to create “More Coaches & Better Coaches”“ and it will do this by investing in three main areas:-

A) The UK Coaching Certificate (UKCC)

The UKCC is being developed across 25 sports in Wales and is hoped to be ready by January 2007 (see http://ukcoachingcertificate.org ). There are vital reasons for this very significant change across all the major sports in the UK:

• consistency within and between sports in the UK

• more emphasis on how2coach rather than what to coach

• More Quality Assurance built in with a highly trained workforce of tutors, assessors, verifiers etc

B) Improving Priority Sports Coaching Systems

Reviews of the top 20 sports have shown the need to assist in several ways the main ones being:

* employ coach education coordinators to increase coach recruitment, e.g. more women coaches
 

* employ community coaches making a difference at club level and leaving a legacy of new & more club coaches
 

* develop better customer care of existing coaches via ongoing development e.g. efficient sports coach databases to prompt action and track coaches
 

* create a Coaching Wales website: www.coachingwales.com a comprehensive guide for would-be or experienced coaches
 

* offer bursaries within governing bodies for students

C) Leadership & Fitness

* Outdoor Leadership: an example being the North West Wales Outdoor Recreation Partnership (NWWORP) project is underway to recruit more leaders to increase base line participation in outdoor activities in NW Wales
 

* Welsh Language: An Officer has been employed by the Welsh Sports Association to develop more sports coaching & activities via the medium of Welsh
 

* A Register of Exercise Professionals will be set up for the Fitness Industry
 

* SkillsActive: to obtain a better deal for sport via the Sector Skills Agreement & ELWa
 

* Sports Leaders UK Wales: to increase the number of tutors so that younger people have foundations of organisational skills.

Work is well underway and we hope to start seeing the benefits of this soon.