Program Overview

Sport isn’t just for elite athletes – it’s for everyone. Passionate, effective and inspiring sport and physical activity development professionals and community coaches are needed to get people moving, help them gain skills and confidence in their physical abilities, develop their sporting potential and adopt active lifestyle habits.

Our BA (Hons) Sport Development and Coaching with foundation year is ideal if your ambition is to become an advanced sport, physical activity and coaching development professional.

The foundation year is the first year of this degree, offering an excellent grounding in the fundamentals of sports management, sport and physical activity development and sports coaching alongside study skills development. It is designed to prepare you for degree-level study.

With this preparation, you’ll be ready to explore the principles, theories, and methods of sport and physical activity development and coaching, as well as social, economic, and political factors affecting the industry. You’ll learn about the ways in which organisations work together to provide opportunities for sport, and different approaches used to engage and sustain physical activity among different inactive groups of the population.

You’ll have opportunities to support and deliver practical coaching sessions and sport and physical activity projects with community groups, gaining the skills, knowledge and confidence to organise your own coaching projects, sports and activity events.

We’ll also encourage you to gain nationally-recognised governing body coaching and activity instructor certificates. Our ambition is to help you become a skilled sport and physical activity professional, ready for a career helping disadvantaged groups enjoy physical activity and wellbeing benefits.

Highlights

• Some of our modules are taught in partnership with sector-leading sport and leisure venues such as Bolton One and Bolton Arena, so you can gain experience in a 'real-world' sports and activity environment.
• We offer a highly qualified and experienced team of sport, physical activity and coaching practitioners and academic staff with links to global sport and physical activity employers in the public, private and commercial, and voluntary community sectors.
• Your work placement will be with one of our broad network of partners. These include professional sports clubs, private and public sector health and physical activity providers, community sport and activity clubs, education providers and national governing bodies.
• You’ll be encouraged to attend our insightful guest lectures from renowned sports professionals and field trip visits. These will enhance your learning, help you make contacts in the industry and contribute to your professional development.

Key Features

• Our on-campus facilities are based in the £31 million Bolton One building, including a multi-use gym, climbing wall, swimming pool, fully-equipped sports science laboratories, strength and conditioning suite, rehabilitation suite, and specialist classrooms.
• We prefer to keep lecture and practical classes relatively small so that you have plenty of opportunities to ask our friendly, supportive staff for help, as well as benefit from the ideas and support offered by your classmates.
• Your work placement gives you the opportunity to put what you have learned into practice, providing valuable hands-on experience. Recently our students have enjoyed placements with Bolton Council, Bolton Arena, GreaterSport (Greater Manchester County Sport Partnership), Bolton Lads and Girls Club, and Bolton Wanderers' FC Community Trust.
• You’ll have the chance to gain further applied experience within the university’s vibrant sports culture, volunteering opportunities and links with community sport and physical activity programmes.
• We’ll support you to develop valuable transferable skills such as communication, independent and group working, research and critical evaluation, and project management that are highly sought after by employers.
• The course has a strong vocational underpinning and is designed to ensure you have extensive opportunities to engage in designing, delivering, monitoring and evaluating work-based learning, managing live projects and gain real-life experience of the industry, thus developing and enhancing your employability skills.
• In groups, you'll design, deliver, monitor and evaluate a sport-for-social-change intervention that meets the needs of a specific audience or group in the local community.

Professional recognition
The University of Bolton is a leading HE Partner and seeking endorsement of this course with the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA).