Program Overview

• Make the most of excellent sports facilities, including a sport and exercise psychology laboratory and technologies for sports analysis
• Enrich your university experience with a wide range of extracurricular opportunities, from traditional Sports Coach UK workshops to cutting-edge performance and professional courses
• Receive first aid and safeguarding training, as well as Disclosure and Barring Service clearance prior to your placement, as part of the course
• Learn to reflect in an analytical way on your practical experience of coaching
• Undertake a community coaching placement in a sports club, leisure centre, or school in Year 2.

Sports coaches used to pick up their skills simply by playing, then passing on their experience. But that’s no longer enough in a world where coaches in tennis, football and cricket have public profiles as high as the players themselves. We now expect coaches to have studied and mastered the art and science of coaching. That’s why on our Sports Coaching course you learn a more ‘professional’ approach by reflecting in an academic way on your practical experiences of coaching practice.

The first strand is Sports Coaching Practice, which teaches you to put theoretical coaching principles into practice to help sports people strive to improve performance. Part of being a successful coach is having good communication skills and we study the best ways to convey your message. In this practical first strand, you may also explore coaching consultancy work in the local sporting community to enhance your employment prospects.

The Supporting Coaching Practice strand helps you to understand both scientific and sociological coaching principles. You focus on how inequality affects both coaching and sports participation and how sport is used to develop local communities. You take a deeper look at training methodology and the use of technology, such as video match analysis. You also focus on educational theory and how it can help structure coaching classes. Finally, you explore coaching special populations, with the primary focus on disability sport.

The Sports Coaching Science strand applies sports science to sports coaching. Covering aspects of biomechanics, physiology and psychology provides you with a science toolkit for coaching.