After laying the foundations for its coaching workforce in 2021, England Korfball has set its sights on an education pathway designed to deliver quality, confidence and community in 2022.
The impact of coaching provision remains a focal point for Korfball’s national governing body, with the value of its coaches crucially driving development from grassroots right up to the elite level.
As Sport Structures continues to work closely on the delivery of England Korfball’s coach education provision, we caught up with their Strategic Lead for Coaching Stephanie Watson, who looked ahead to a year of ambition and progress.
Watson said: “We’ve made big strides in our coach development from 2021.
“One is the development of the workforce with a dedicated coaching subcommittee, which has enabled a number of actions around coaching to be developed, such as a membership-wide coaching consultation. This was the starting force for identifying the priority areas for our coach education and development."
“England Korfball’s strategic priorities highlight the value of coaches and how, by focussing on coach development and coach education, the quality of coach provision will feed into other strategic areas.
“We have to highlight the need for better quality coaches and understand that we’re shifting from a certification view to a coach development model. People who are going on our new Level 2 courses are on a pathway for coach development, not just a certification that you are Level 2 and ending there.”
Alongside that shift in the sport’s coach education pathway comes the content itself, with the redesigned Level 2 Certificate in Coaching offering a clearer and more developed route for the korfball workforce. According to Watson, developing new material with Sport Structures in 2022 provides an opportunity to impact the sport outside of coaching alone.
“It was evident that the development of our coaching workforce was going to become, and is now, a big part of the development of the governing body. It’s not just new coaches, but bringing on board our many dedicated existing coaches so that they are on the same pathway together’ she added.
“I would say a renewed focus on the value of coaching to other areas such as club health and club development has been a big reflection of 2021 and 2022.”
The governing body are conscious of the vital experience and enthusiasm of their coaching community across the country, and the key to activating that community is doing so in the right way.
"The desire is there. There are bigger events and the sport itself is professionalising as a governing body. When that happens, your workforce has to keep up, if not stay ahead."
- Stephanie Watson, England Korfball
With aspiring coaches ready to power the growth of the sport, Watson’s focus remains on fostering that community along a clear and efficient path.
She said: “2022 is about expansion and that’s not all about starting from scratch.
“It’s not all about new coaches, but we want them to be on the same pathway, not operating in isolation outside of the standards that we want to establish.
“The work is all about widening the base of our workforce, leading us down a road where we can support coaches in different ways: in elite sport, through fundamentals at grassroots, or going down tutoring and assessing routes.”
Effectively delivering that pathway represents a fundamental step towards wider strategic success, and for England Korfball, the community that results will be one of quality and confidence.
Watson concluded: “Having the quality assurance which obviously Sport Structures provides in the delivery model gives confidence to that minimum standard that the governing body expects of its coaches.
“That shouldn’t just give confidence to the governing body, but its purpose is to give confidence to the coaches themselves.
“Knowing that you are with a community of other coaches that are doing the same thing is exactly what we’re aiming for. What brings confidence is to know that they’re delivering a quality of coaching, and that comes from knowing that we offer and create that community.”