We've seen some horrendous stories of poor and abusive practice by coaches in all environments in recent years, but is it their fault? Has the system for training and developing coaches over the last twenty years failed to ensure they are suitable for coaching sport? Here, I'll explore my thoughts on the root causes of this and some solutions or suggested directions.
The Evolution of Coaching in the UK
Firstly, we have to understand that junior club sport in the UK is still maturing relative to Europe. We must remember that after-school sport and the school sport system set up decades ago dominated the development of young people until the shock to the system of the 1984/85 teachers' action. This action effectively closed down inter-school sport, supported by teachers who wanted PE specialists. In addition, the first national curriculum in 1988, along with the introduction of GCSE and A-level PE, fundamentally changed the role of the PE teacher. I know this because I was one! There was little time for after-school sport as marking and other duties took over.
The independent schools and major sports were the first to react, but those still led coaching and the organisation of sport with a teaching background. Why is that important? It's because, like me, teachers spent three years learning about the psychological, physiological, and sociological development of children and young people, as well as pedagogical approaches.
Early in the millennium, many sports had no coaching structure to develop those who wished to coach the sport they loved or that their children wished to undertake. Pleasingly, the Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, took hold of things and drove the need for a standardised coaching structure. And so, the UK Coaching Certificate was born.
However, it went down a qualification route, and when you have a qualification for life, it implies the end of a coach's education journey until they move to the next level.
At the time, some of us were identifying what other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and Germany, were doing. They had either identified core competencies for coaches to achieve, with "bolt-on" regular technical updates, or a licensing system based on coaches updating themselves on the environment they coached in.
The qualification drive was based on the opportunity of gaining funding to support the cost of the qualification. This certainly didn't materialise in England, although Sport Scotland has taken a positive approach to grant-aiding coach education now for over a decade. So, as I identified above, coaches qualified and stopped their learning journey unless they were self-motivated to continue. NGBs were swamped with qualification requirements and pushed continuing professional development (CPD) to the back burner or didn't consider it at all. This was also the case with UK Coaching (Sports Coach UK at the time) in arranging the training of tutors and assessors. My observation was that this was perpetuating the existing profile of tutors and assessors who were not always relevant to the new communities being opened to coach education. This stimulated us to disrupt the system and seek new tutors and assessors who were not from the traditional type. I'm pleased with the over 2,000 people we have taken through this workforce route in the last 15 years.
The "Why" is Missing
However, minimal coaching craft, or as it's been described, "how to coach" knowledge and skills, was being given to coaches. More importantly, the "why" wasn't being explained, i.e., the philosophy of why you are coaching. The confusion within NGBs was clear. For many, this was about revenue and hitting performance targets, not about how to have fun in the sport and keep people playing for years. I remember discussing the delivery of coach education with an NGB and was told we needed to charge more to hit income targets, not improve coaching. Some did invest, with Netball being a great example of this.
So, what is the outcome now? We now have coaches trained for four days with little or no knowledge of why they are coaching, and they all want to coach the best players. There's no knowledge or understanding of child development, and some great workshops run by UK Coaching aimed at this were discontinued as they weren't needed for a coach to be "compliant." Workshops such as "Coaching Young People" and "Equity in Your Coaching" were dropped rather than kept because it was the right thing to do.
A Path Forward: Professionalising the Role
How can this tide of the lowest common denominator of coach education be changed? For me, it's simple: we need to really recognise coaching as a profession that needs constant education, but tailored to the nature of the coach. For example, a full-time coach leading a significant programme will need more education and mentoring than a coach supporting a junior programme once a week.
To do this is to take a step into the licensing of coaches, so unless they undertake education, they can't coach. Judo has been doing this for years and provides a structured licensing programme that is accepted and valued by the coaches and clubs.
Throughout the last twenty years, a number of organisations, particularly UK Coaching, have sought to provide learning to educate coaches, and these resources are invaluable and of high quality. A number of bodies have engaged positively with this CPD, and we have worked closely with UK Coaching to provide a number of these. However, unless these become part of an essential, if not mandatory provision, then coaching will not progress. The coaches who want to develop are accessing these, and in my view, the coaches that need to are the ones that don’t access these.
Unless we move in this direction, with the nature of our litigious society, the sector and coaching will become uninsurable and not valued by the government as we should be. I believe strongly that people who hold power over coaches need to be brought together, as one NGB CEO recently said to me. This should be similar to UK Anti-Doping, a single body overseeing coaching for the right reasons. We have a Chartered Institute (CIMSPA), and this body has the standing with the government to do this alongside the new safe-sport approach.
If we don't, then participants of all ages will not be as safe as they should be, and the enjoyment we have had out of sport will gradually fester on the vine.
