Sports Coaching and School Sport

What's the Sports Coaching and School Sports course about?

If you have a real passion for the sport and want to gain and improve sports coaching skills, specifically within sports coaching and school sport, then this top up to a full honors degree is the programme for you. Designed to help entry, as well as progression, within a range of careers, it provides students with extensive skills and knowledge in key areas of sports coaching and school sport. It is ideal for those who wish to work with community sports clubs, schools, National Governing Bodies and operate sports coaching based businesses.

The BA (Hons) in Sports Coaching and School Sport includes practical based work, analysis of contemporary issues in sport, sports performance analysis, sports psychology, fitness, nutrition, and enterprise. The course contains a mix of academic and practical based tasks and is centered on codes of conduct, ethics and professional practice within sports coaching and school sports based contexts.

The course is delivered predominately on a full-time basis by industry specialist staff, who have a wide range of knowledge within the sport, physical activity, and coaching, and have actively been involved with professional football, rugby, powerlifting, gymnastics, hockey, and fitness.

- Contemporary Issues in Sports Coaching and School Sport

This module will examine contemporary topics within a sports coaching/ educational context. It will cover areas such as racism, gambling, cheating and corruption, sportsmanship and gamesmanship, the role of technology, embedding literacy and numeracy within school sport and the benefits of sport for the wider community.

- Fitness and Nutrition for Young People

This module will examine the key elements of fitness and nutrition, specifically within the younger population. It will focus upon areas such as appropriate exercise programming for younger athletes / active children, planning safe and effective group exercise sessions, group exercise behavior strategies for younger people, benefits to the individual and society of improved nutrition in children, guideline daily amounts and dietary reference and values of macro and micronutrients for children.

- Applied Performance Analysis for Coaching

This module will examine the role that modern technology can play in learning by providing analysis and technical feedback. It will address areas such as the analysis of the individual sports performer, stages of learning, skill acquisition, motor skills, observation, communication and feedback methods.

- Research Project

This module will enable the student to produce a research project within a sports coaching/ educational based context. It will include areas such as ethics and ethics clearance, writing a literature review, applying an appropriate research method/s, collecting and analyzing data, discussing results and findings and refining presentation and referencing skills.

- Psychology and Development within Sports Coaching

This module will examine a range of factors involved with psychology within the younger population. It will examine areas such as the psychological benefits of sports participation, generating confidence and building self-esteem, building character, developing courage, motivation and the role of significant others (e.g. adult teachers, coaches, parents) within sports coaching/ school sport.

- Enterprise for Sports Coaching

This module will focus on areas associated with running sports coaching business. It will cover areas such as the entrepreneurship process, recruitment, and retention of staff, strategic marketing including the usage of social media, competitor organizations, customer service and quality management and creative strategy.

The course is assessed through two tasks per module split into one full assessment. Tasks are based on industry scenarios and are practically based in many of the modules. Development of practical and academic skills (e.g. delivering sessions, essay writing, report writing, case studies and self-awareness /reflective evaluation of own skill sets) are built into assignments to enable students to develop and grow their skills in a wide range of areas.

Examples of assessments include:

• Applied coaching/delivery tasks
• Analysing performance and enhancing technical sports skills
• Contemporary sports coaching topic analysis
• Developing the psychology of the sports performer
• Research project
• Oral presentations
• Poster presentations