With UK Coaching week celebrating the instrumental role of sport coaches across England, it’s an opportunity to highlight the amazing work coaches have done to help the country out of what has been a tough two-year period, largely as a result of the pandemic.
Coaches (or activity professionals) play an important role in a lot of children’s lives and are often a source of fun activities and sports, inspiring children to keep active and healthy. According to YouGov.com, 70% of the public perceive coaches as an integral component in helping the UK become a fitter and more active society.
At Premier Education, we have a network of over 1,000 fully qualified, professional coaches spread across the country who deliver amazing experiences for young children daily.
As part of UK Coaching Week, we are going to highlight the work we do in-line with UK Coaching’s five pillars of interest: Safeguarding, Inclusion, Diversity, Mental Health, and Wellbeing.
Safeguarding
A priority for parents is not only for their kids to be entertained when they are working, but most importantly it’s about safety and security.
Our coaches are the best in the industry when it comes to delivering fun sporting activities, but they are also experienced in childcare, ensuring each child’s needs are met. All activity professionals hold an up-to-date safeguarding qualification, conduct a full DBS check and take part in other relevant training towards safeguarding-related qualifications.
Child safety is paramount, and all coaches have a commitment to Keeping Children Safe in Education 2021 (KCSIE 2021). In line with this commitment, each coach works to protect children from maltreatment, prevent impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development, ensure that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care, and take action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Inclusion
Proudly, our coaches come from a wide range of backgrounds. Whether it is a trainee at the beginning of their career or those looking for career progression, there are a host of opportunities for aspiring professionals of all abilities and experiences.
Our career pathways provide some of the best training programmes in the country and ensures that inexperienced coaches have the required resources to reach their goals. We are committed to career growth and a number of our coaches have gone on to become regional managers and franchisees.
As a result of government incentives for traineeships and through the partnership with Educationwise, aspiring coaches can develop the necessary skills and experience they need for an apprenticeship or coaching role within the company. Traineeships are great for developing those with little experience and are mostly ideal for 16–18-year-olds, boosting their confidence whilst providing a platform to showcase competence and skillsets required for a coaching role.
Additionally, it’s important that coaches recognise they must operate with inclusivity to ensure all children’s needs are met, regardless of their ability, characteristics and background. This is a pivotal area of consideration that coaches at Premier Education put into practise, helping each child take the necessary steps to reach their full potential.
We have been delivering kids sports sessions for a long time now. Within a 20-year period we have become industry leaders through our high-standard of coaching, finding different ways to inspire and motivate children from all backgrounds and abilities. With patience, attentiveness and expert knowledge, every coach leaves a lasting impression on each child, giving them the tools to make positive progression in life through sports.
Diversity
From starting twenty years ago as a football provider to evolving into the UK’s industry leader for sports and physical activities, Premier Education has come a long way. The landscape in the coaching industry has simultaneously grown in that period with the importance of equal opportunities widely prioritised in the industry.
Diversity in coaching is critical to viewing the world from a wider lens enabling the tools to empathise and empower others. Our network of coaches come from over 137 territories across the UK and derive from various ethnicities, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic realities. This enables us to enter communities across the country and have an impact by meeting the needs of children from all backgrounds.
Mental Health
The imprint left as a result of the pandemic period, especially on young children, is vastly apparent, sparking on-going conversations on the importance of mental health. According to our 2021 Child Wellbeing report, many primary school children have experienced difficulties with their mental health which has led to an increase of anxiety and depression.
Today, it is widely acknowledged that physical health directly impacts mental health. Studies suggest regular exercise has profound benefits to a life of increased physical activity. Our coaches have played a pivotal role in steering young children in a better direction both mentally and physically post-lockdown.
The time each coach spends with a child has significant impact in helping them achieve positive progression. Sports sessions at Premier Education is where a lot of children conduct most of their recommended daily amount of physical activity. During lockdown the number of inactive children in the UK rose to 63%, highlighting the importance of the time each child spends with our coaches and the positive impact that it can have towards their mental health.
Kids of a young age are at a developmental stage with physical, emotional, and psychological patterns, habits and capabilities that are yet to be formed. Each coach is attentive to every child’s needs and equips them with positive habits and attitudes required to develop a healthy lifestyle as they grow older.
Wellbeing
We live in a world where children have many distractions. From social media and computer games to their favourite cartoons.
Getting children active and physically healthy is a challenge for many parents. This has been further impacted in recent times as a result of the pandemic, where 82% of children fell short of the daily physical activity recommendation of one hour per day, every day. With additional concerns about the rate of obesity increasing amongst young people in England, immediate action is needed to re-direct the landscape of child wellbeing.
Coaches have been at the heart of re-invigorating child health in the UK post pandemic and getting kids active again continues to be a major concern that needed addressing.
This has been a priority for Premier Education and our country-wide network of activity professionals. From delivering football and tennis to dance and gymnastics, coaches are putting smiles back on faces again through a range of curricular and extra-curricular sessions.
Impacting over 240,000 primary school children each year, coaches at Premier Education play a pivotal role in encouraging healthy lifestyle changes in many communities across England.
With a large number having previous experience working in schools as staff, there is an established understanding of the needs each child requires. By delivering activities kids love, an increase of physical activity across communities’ boosts child development, emotional wellbeing, physical and mental health, behaviour, mood and weight, key areas that each child needs to progress on to their full potential.
Our coaches play an important role in children’s positive progression, nurturing them into making the right choices on their journey to adulthood. Each session that is delivered is an opportunity to make a difference to a young person’s life and coaches at Premier Education are in the privileged position to be that influence. We are proud of the commitment and professionalism of our coaches who continuously create memorable experiences across the country and are positioned as perfect role models for the next generation.
