Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE)

SkillsActive in partnership with a number of governing bodies of sport, industry experts and other partnership organisations, has developed the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) framework. The framework was approved in March 2004, has been rolled out across football, rugby union and in golf, and AASE is being piloted by a number of sports across the UK from September 2006.

Find out more about AASE by watching the following video, or Click here to download SkillsActive’s interactive AASE brochure for athletes, which details the unique programme and what it can offer elite athletes who are seeking to perform at the highest level as their main career goal. A similar brochure is available here, providing information for parents.

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Who is AASE aimed at?

AASE has been designed to meet the needs of young people (aged 16-18) ‘who have the realistic potential to achieve excellence in their sport and are seeking to perform at the highest level as their main career goal’. Notionally taking two-years to complete, the AASE framework will provide for the first time a structured national training and development route, across all sports, for talented young athletes, many of whom may go to represent their country on the Olympic stage or gain professional contracts.

AASE will have a major impact on the development of young athletes across a range of competitive sports. The framework contains a new Scottish/National Vocational Qualification (S/NVQ) which is fully reflective of the broad range of competences required in professional sport and not a qualification for simply playing the game. It is designed to directly measure the athlete’s ability to apply themselves to professional development in the technical, tactical, physical and psychological aspects of the chosen sport. Importantly it will also directly address wider issues, such as lifestyle, communication, wider career management and health and safety.

The Apprenticeship is designed for four categories of involvement: full-time contracted apprentices at professional clubs; full-time elite athletes receiving support from the lottery world class programme and identified by their respective NGB; any young people involved in the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) and those talented young people in the “academy environment” at professional clubs not yet offered full time terms.

Find out more

Click here to download SkillsActive’s interactive AASE brochure for athletes, which details the unique programme and what it can offer elite athletes who are seeking to perform at the highest level as their main career goal. A similar brochure is available here, providing information for parents.

To download an AASE factsheet please click here.

AASE featured at the ISPAL Conference, with presentations by Stephen Mitchell of SkillsActive on AASE across all sports and Alan Sykes of League Football Education on AASE in Football.

The AASE certification request form is available here.

The only awarding body through which the NVQ can be delivered is Edexcel – for further information click here.