South West coaches offered skill boosting bursaries

Andrew Brown, SkillsActive - 19/06/2007

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Sport England have injected £100,000 into sports coaching qualifications in the South West with this exciting new project which is being managed by SkillsActive.  Aimed at both aspiring and existing coaches, it will help them gain qualifications at level 1, 2 and 3 which will be recognised by the new UK Coaching Certificate (UKCC).

With over 400 coaches and aspiring coaches to take part in the programme between now and December 2007,  the partners are planning bursaries for training coaches in a wide variety of sports including triathlon, tennis, swimming, rugby, hockey and even angling.

Each of the seven county sports partnerships in the South West will actively identify and engage with learners from the sports clubs in their counties, as part of the county workforce development plans they have recently completed, in order to promote the professionalisation of coaching. 

In order to record their development progress the participants in the project will also receive an activepassport, the skills passport for the active leisure and learning sector.  This will provide the coaches with an online record of all their learning, employment, work placement and volunteering activities.  The benefit of the activepassport is that this will allow them to demonstrate to anyone that their skills and qualifications are up to date and have been verified.

For more information coaches and aspiring coaches can find out more about bursaries through their county sports partnerships:

• Cornwall – Mike Thomas - mithomas@cornwall.gov.uk
• Devon – Matt Evans - matt.evans@devon.gov.uk
• Somerset – Jane Knowles - JKnowles@somerset.gov.uk
• Dorset – Fiachra O’Mathuna - fomathuna@bournemouth.ac.uk
• Wiltshire – Angela Crawley - angelacrawley@wiltshire.gov.uk
• Wesport – Sarah Hawkins - sarah3.hawkins@uwe.ac.uk
• Gloucestershire – Rhiannon Herbert - rherbert@glos.ac.uk