Sports Coaching and Development students have been taking part in national ‘UK Coaching Week’ developed to promote sports coaching post Covid-19 and encourage signing up to a #GreatCoachingPledge.
Students from both the College's Coaching course and Stamford Football Academy course took part, getting involved online and face to face throughout the week.
As part of the week, students signed up to complete a ‘Mental Health Awareness in Sport and Physical Activity Course’ which they completed and received certificates for. They also took part in lessons about what makes a great coach, and created their own coaching pledge, looking at their future goals and aspirations and how they can be a great future coach in sport.
Wleed Mazhar, a student on the Level 3 Coaching and Development course said, "I’m happy that I was given an opportunity to complete the mental health awareness course as that gave me huge information about people who may be dealing with things which we may not know about and this would definitely help me in the future. I am also proud to be about of UK coaching week because I set myself a goal which would I will be making to improve myself. When also reading on the website, it has also given me information about what a makes a good coach which I’ll certainly will be trying to improve."
Charlie Upex, a member of the Level 3 Year 1 Football Development course said, "I feel great after taking the course because I’ve learned about mental health in sports and how important it really is nowadays. It has helped me develop a much better understanding around mental health and how it affects everyone in different ways, and these skills can not only be used in sports but just in general which is fantastic! I feel that it’s definitely one of the most useful courses out there purely because of the importance towards mental health."
"Mental health has now become a topic of significant importance now because it affects people of all ages, and everyone has their own experience. And the more that people understand it and know how to deal with it themselves or by helping people, and that’s incredible in itself. I’m over the moon to have taken part of UK Coaching Week and to have a very important course to my name."
Ryan Thomas, a member of the Level 3 Year 1 Football Development course said, "I felt the course was very helpful as it gave a lot of information about mental health issues that can occur in people’s life’s and tried to give us the best advice possible to help these people struggling with mental health issues as best as possible. The course was very useful and can be very useful for everyone because you never know what is going on in people’s life so we need to be able to help people out as much as possible. Overall I have enjoyed taking part in National Coaching Week as you see a new side to everything. I only used to see things from a player perspective but now I have begun to see things from a coaching perspective and I think this is very beneficial."
The Sports Department are also looking for sports coaches from all forms of sport to get involved. From volunteering to appearing in an online Q and A session, to getting involved either at our Borderville Sports Centre or another venue. If you feel you could help out as a volunteer guest please get in touch. For more information email caz.dolby@stamford.ac.uk
