Julie has been a UKSCA accredited coach since 2009 and has led successful programmes within schools and universities for over 10 years. Julie frequently consults on the initiation of many schools S+C programmes, and advises on content, infrastructure and viability. Julie is a member of the UKSCA board of directors and is a lecturer at Uni of Chichester.
In this episode, Julie discusses:
- The humble beginnings of the Queenswood with no equipment and basic facilities.
- How Julie recognised opportunities to add value to the school community.
- Why it’s important to continually demonstrate value to justify investment and expenditure.
- How the program grew to justify an investment in a 1 million pound facility.
- Why Universities don’t prepare coaches for working with youth athletes.
- Her new role as a Director on the UKSCA Board as well as influencing the University sector.
Listen to the episode in full here!
You can follow Julie’s work via her Instagram: @juliegooderick and her Twitter: @juliegooderick .
To learn more about the LTAD Network check out www.ltadnetwork.com or follow on Instagram: @ltadnetwork or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ltadnetwork . You can keep up to date with Athletic Evolution via our www.athleticevolution.co.uk , Instagram: @athleticevouk and Twitter: @athleticevouk .
Rob Anderson
Good morning, Julie, it’s great to have you on the podcast this morning. Thanks for spending your time with us.
Julie Gooderick
Well, and well thank you for having me.
Rob Anderson
So for those who haven’t come across you maybe didn’t hear you speak at the UK press conference and haven’t come across the work you’ve been doing. Tell us a bit about the young Julie, what sort of sports did you get involved in what sort of activities and and how did that love of sport begin?
Julie Gooderick
So yeah, my name is Julie Godrich. I guess my love of sport started from a very young age, I was did a lot of different activities as a child. When I was probably about 12 or 13. I started doing trampolining and I was actually an elite trampoline just as a as a youth. So I got a scholarship to university on the back of that. And it was it within that scholarship that that was kind of my first exposure to s&c if you like, as that was part of the university programme. And during my university years on the scholarship, I you know, I really enjoyed the s&c side of training, I got very into the physical training, I enjoyed the sessions, I enjoyed discovering how it affected my performance. And it was something I really look forward to. And I guess that was quite formative in me wanting to go into into coaching if you like. So I did Sports Therapy at university and I always knew that I would either go into kind of the injury side, the rehab side, something along those lines. But yeah, after my positive experience of s&c I kind of went down that route after uni.
Rob Anderson
Is it fair to say that when you started there probably weren’t that many female s&c coaches about and you might have been a bit of a unicorn?
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, I definitely think that’s true. I mean, there’s still not that many. Now to be honest as well, you know, we’ve still got a huge disparity with male female divide. And obviously, that’s something I’m actively working with the UKSCA to try and improve upon because you know, it’s not a, you know, we’ve got a very biassed population, and we don’t need to, but and hopefully, as well, with the concurrent increase in funding with female sports, we’re gonna hopefully see that divide start to adjust as we, you know, over the next few years, I would hope, but yeah, absolutely. And it’s in the early years, and even to now, to be honest, you know, it’s something that has been quite hard sometimes. And you do come across a lot of gender bias in how people communicate how people talk. And I’d probably be lying as well, if I said, I didn’t come across the, you know, within my within my role, so.
Rob Anderson
So talk us through some of those initial roles. So obviously, you know, you don’t you don’t go through uni and not do any practical experience. People are doing bits and pieces on the side getting their hours set up. And then what does that look like when you came out of uni in terms of coaching posts and the various hats that you probably had on?
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, so when I came out of university, I got a job. I was fortunate in that I got a job straightaway as an assistant s&c at a LTA High Performance Centre. So I actually started out in the world of tennis, which was a world I didn’t really know, a great deal about, it wasn’t a sport I was only familiar with. So it was a real learning curve. And I was fortunate that, you know, my position was junior, so I got to learn from a lot of, you know, the head coaches and so on, I spent a lot of time with them. And I really kind of learned the trade there. So I was coaching kids age from four up till, well, 21 was probably our oldest within that setup. So a real spectrum of ages, and you know, anyone that’s worked with them, the youth sector will know that it really does hone your craft, because if they’re finding your session boring, they will tell you, they will sit down, they will start mucking around. So you know, it really forces you as a practitioner to step up and start delivering sessions that are obviously doing the job, but are also engaging and fun. And, you know, it kind of is a good setting, I guess, to work on your delivery. And you’re fortunate as well, and that you can kind of try stuff, you know, I mean, it’s not to say you’re trying, you know, really risky stuff, and blah, blah. But essentially, if you do a few things that are that didn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world. Whereas when you’re coming into that elite setting, you know, that’s more difficult, isn’t it as an early practitioner to try out some of your ideas and see what works and what doesn’t. So I think for me, starting off in that setting was really, really positive. And it’s certainly something that I think formed my coaching style. After I’d spent, I think, maybe two or three years there in that environment. I just so happened that one of the girls from Queenswood school was accessing our tennis programme. And queens were being a boarding school. So her director of sport actually brought her over to the centre one day and was watching her training with me. And after that, the director of sport came up to me and said, You know, I love that session you did with so and so. She was like we’re trying to formulate a scholarship programme at Queenswood. Are you interested in coming on board? So obviously I said yes, very keen. And we had a conversation and we just started off with a few hourly paid sessions at Queenswood. So over the course of the next year or so I was kind of splitting those two roles. I was still doing the assistant coaching role, and I was doing the hourly paid stuff for Queenswood. And then over the next few years, I just built that programme at Queenswood. And it became a full time role for me after that.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, it’s really interesting because it’s one of the things you want to dive dive into is the huge amount of variation across schools in terms of what the s&c coaches is delivering or what they’re responsible for, whether it is, you know, a scholarship programme, or whether it is, you know, integration to pay, etc. But it is one of those things that I think if s&c coaches that are in schools can kind of see some of the opportunities, a role can really evolve from a few hours, like yours to a full time role.
Julie Gooderick
Absolutely. And I think it’s quite interesting, because when this director of sport approached me, you know, I think for most directors of sports or heads of PE, it’s maybe easy to see the application for their scholarship athletes, if they have that. Or, you know, if they want to build a scholarship programme, they can kind of understand that because essentially, what we’re doing is mapping an Elite model, which you see in football, tennis, whatever on the TV, and you’re bringing it down a level into your into your school environment. So I think that is quite easy for people to understand. I think what is is less understood, because obviously, the trained teachers, they’re not trained s&c coaches, is the application of s&c to your non scholarship pupils and to the whole school, you know, as a dynamic if you like, so I think once you’re, you know, maybe it’s more likely that your your entry level stuff is going to be servicing your scholarship group. And then perhaps once practitioners are in those environments, they can start to evolve the role and, and grow it and bring in as many participants as they can from that school.
Rob Anderson
So let’s dig into that. So what what that evolution looked like, like from basic things like facilities, equipment, hours, the number of athletes, that type of athletes give us a bit of an understanding of that journey from being essentially a contracted coach to being able to flesh things out and ask that, you know, the school said, actually, this is justifying the employee full time.
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, so we started off, I think we had eight scholars initially. And the director of sport, you know, had an idea that they were all hockey players, we, at the time, we were quite decent in the private school hockey competitions. So she had an idea, let’s formulate a scholarship programme, give these girls that are turning out for our first team, a bit of support, let’s help build them up to become better athletes. So that was what it was, after I and I think I did offhand. I’m trying to maybe two or three group sessions with those with those girls. After I had done that, and it kind of proven that the girls were getting into it somewhat. I, you know, I approached the Director of Sports, and we need more hours, because I want to work more individual with these girls now. And also, you know, let’s expand it to maybe our tennis players, maybe our netball player, so let’s just push it out a little bit, push the boundaries out. Fortunately, she freed up some budget, and she agreed. So we said yes. And went forward. So we’ve kind of grown the scholarship element like that, if you like, after that. It was quite interesting. Because you know, within that initial few months, six months or whatever, the girls were quite resistant to doing it because they’ve never had that exposure to s&c If you like they found it quite an alien concept and a little bit. You know, it’s quite daunting, isn’t it as a teenage girl to try something new and you feel a bit awkward. But once we’ve kind of got over that, and they found they were getting into it, they would start to bring their friends in session who would kind of sit and watch and take it in and think oh, that’s quite interesting. And then I was getting a lot more interest from girls that were maybe on the fringes of the first team hockey, let’s say or you know, that they were into sport, but they weren’t sort of scholarship level. They weren’t at county level and above, which was our minimum requirements. So after I kind of understood that level of interest, I approached my director of sport and I said, Well, how about we build some sort of transitional tier? Okay, so we called it our principals award programme, which was kind of like a second tier scholarship if you like, so you got access to s&c But you didn’t get the other benefits of being a scholar. So the aim was that you would come on, you would do your s&c you would improve as an athlete and then you progress on to scholarship level. So by this point, we’re kind of building hours and we’re building numbers and we’re building interest in the programme. Again, one of the things I think was really key for me, was I always had an open door policy. So anyone was welcome to come and look at the sessions, observe the sessions. They weren’t allowed to, you know, talk to the girls whilst they were training, but they were allowed to sit in the seats and watch. And I think that was really integral because what I found after that was that I was getting approached by a number of non sporty, shall we say, girls, who were saying, hey, you know, can I come and use the gym where you train me? And I was kind of building a level of interest outside the sports environment. So once I kind of understood that I again, went back the director of sport and I said, you know, let’s offer an open session. We’ll call it the SMC club. And we offered that after school a couple of times a week. And again, the numbers filled really quickly. So all I was doing within those sessions was really just teaching the girls how to train. We did some lifting. We did some basic of let’s learn how to Use the machines in the gym, let’s just get comfortable with exercise and training and pushing ourselves and understanding this, this kind of environment if you’d like. So, yeah, we kind of built like that. And then, yeah, we just kind of continued expanding, I suppose, as we went through until such a point where I was able to leave my other role came on board at Queenswood, full time, you know, and by the end, we continued getting investment, we continued growing the programme to such a scale that we could have assistant coaches, and we, it became, you know, a whole whole thing within itself. But I think what was really important as well was that communication with the whole rest of the school and demonstrating where your programme sits within that school environment, inviting teachers to come and have a look inviting teachers to come and train, and really just starting to affect that whole school ethos. To get them to understand health, fitness training, you know, this is what we do, and this is where to come for it.
Rob Anderson
There’s so much to dive into there. So firstly, from from my perspective, did you have a bit of a plan of attack in your head? Or was this something that you actually thought, Oh, we can we can then work with this group, and we can work this group? Or did you think I’ve got a bit of a plan here? If I if I do this, then I can do this? And then I can do this? What was your kind of situation?
Julie Gooderick
I think when I first stepped into those first eight girls, and they had nothing, they had no equipment, they had an empty ballet studio, which was going to be my room, my training room, if you like. And I definitely saw the potential because, you know, I knew that others well, there was a couple of other schools at the time, but there wasn’t many. But I knew about the ones that did have these programmes. And I thought, Okay, well, we can grow something similar here, we’ve got a lot of girls within one area, at a very important age and a very important stage of life. You know, so this is this has got good potential. And I recognise that. So I didn’t really have a strategy in terms of I’m going to do this, this and then this. But I did, I was kind of cognizant of each opportunities that arose. So I kind of kept my eyes open to what was going on. And I think within about a couple of months of being there, my personal goal was to make this the best schools programme in the UK. And I was happy with what I did with that, because always I had the big vision that I wanted it to be a real seminar programme, a real kind of standing out programme. And I think for me, that’s why I kept on growing it and evolving it because I wanted it to be bigger and better. And I wanted it to be successful. So yeah, I didn’t really have kind of a strategic plan as such, but I would say I kept my eyes open to what was going on.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s a really important point. Because, you know, as we were discussing off, there’s such a variety in the amount of hours schools and employing coaches, what those coaches are employed to do, whether that is you know, just as scholar athletes or as Pe delivery, etc. But as you’ve kind of pointed out, there are a lot of opportunities, if people come in with the right mindset to think, hey, I can see how I can make an impact there, I could see how these people would benefit from it. Or, you know, there’s some extra bit here, okay, maybe it’s maybe it’s a couple hours unpaid. But if I prove my worth, then I’ve got a pilot project or a proof of concept, but it really comes down to the individuals and they’re sometimes people are in schools just sitting on their laurels, happy to do their five to 10 hours, right, and then go off and do something else.
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s really important to bear in mind that when you’re coming into this schools environment, you’re the expert in this field. Okay, the director of sport doesn’t know more than you. And so when I was initiating this programme at Queenswood, I would come with these ideas, like, you know, one of my ideas was, like, I want to present on the open day, I want to talk about this, this and this. And they were kind of like, oh, like you actually want to do that. And I was like, Yeah, of course. So because that’s good exposure for my programme, you know, so they hadn’t even thought of things like that. And another idea was to run the, the PG, what’s it called, kind of remember PSHE some of the sessions within that. So I was running kind of like the fitness and wellbeing side, if you like, which again, they hadn’t thought. But for me, it was just a different way to get exposure for my programme. And also just to demonstrate how I can impact the school community as a whole, if you like. So you know, when I would say to new practitioners coming into these roles, just be mindful that your director of sport isn’t going to instruct you on growth factors, okay, necessarily, they may, but you know, they’re unlikely to you’re coming in as the expert. So it’s up to you as the expert to identify areas, which your expertise can impact. You know, and I think it’s a real shame if practitioners are coming into these types of roles to just sit and deliver their five to 10 hours and then go home and do that year in year out. I think that’s a real shame. And I think that’s doing the industry a disservice because it’s still SMC in schools is still very much in its infancy. And, you know, if we’re not them, if we as a group of practitioners aren’t demonstrating our worth in these early stage environments, you know, 10 years down the line, these schools aren’t going to be interested in So it’s up to us the people that are doing these types of early stage roles to be demonstrating the level of impact that we can have in this environment.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s really key, I think, as you pointed out, and I’ve had this conversation with so many people that, you know, sometimes, especially in a private school environment where, you know, one private school gets it, so they kind of have to almost one up each other. And we’ll, we’ll get one of those as well. It’s easy to demonstrate value in a new facility, isn’t it to kind of say, Oh, well, we spent 50 grand, and we’ve got X amount of squat racks and bumper plates, and blah, blah, blah, it’s a lot harder to demonstrate the value of the expertise of a person. But if that person takes on their shoulder and says, Look, we could impact staff wellbeing by running some after school lifting sessions for staff, and, you know, now staff reporting and then when you have that conversation with the bursar, they actually know who you are, first of all, yeah. And they’re like, oh, yeah, I can see we need new bar, because I’ve been in there and it looks like it’s battered, or grows, often. Often coaches can just be in a little hideaway, whether they have a gym, or they have a studio or wherever and after school doesn’t even know what what they look like or what they actually do.
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, and I think that’s, that’s kind of one of the key things I talked about at the USDA conference as well, because, you know, I said the importance really, I think one of the reasons my programme was successful in growing was because in those early years, I you know, I very much made it my business to get to know everyone under the roof, from the security guards at the front gate, you know, the cleaners, because you’re going to need people like that, at some point, you’re going to need the security one day if you want to go in for a 7:30am session. But more importantly, just so that you can you can kind of get to know people and like you said, they then know who you are. So when people are talking about the athletic development programme, people aren’t scratching their heads and not knowing what that is. And I think another thing that’s really important is just being present at things like staff room at Breaktime. You know, go and have a coffee with other teachers and say, you know, Hey, my name is whatever, I run this and see department, you know, just to have a chat, just, you know, people are normally quite open and quite interested, I found, you know, because it’s something a little bit different away from History or English, whatever else, isn’t it? You’re coming in with kind of a new thing that they’ve probably not seen really in other schools, and they’re going to be interested. So yeah, just get yourself out into that school environment and meet people and be a presence.
Rob Anderson
So when I mean, obviously, you’ve left that role now. So you know, what, what was the stage it was in when you moved on? What had it evolved into?
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, so I was I was, I went on maternity leave for my second child. And after that, I decided it was time for change. So I was ready to step away. We just the year before I went on maternity, we got an investment. So it was a 1.2 million pound facility that we built. From that I think we were servicing around was around about 15 to 18 Scholars, we had probably 20 on our principals Award, which was our second tier scholarship. But as a whole, we were servicing probably around another 15 to 20 non scholars for individual sessions. So girls, were just paying for those sessions as like a hourly paid activity like they would do music lessons. So we you know, we had it was financially viable. We had we were making money for the school, we would have internships coming in. And it was yeah, it was a fully robust programme. And I was really proud of it. And yeah, I was proud to hand it over and let it continue. That’s a pretty
Rob Anderson
amazing sort of progression, you think no, to start with a ballet studio and no equipment and a couple hours a week to the point where you’ve demonstrated enough value that schools prepare to turn around and say, Yeah, we’re gonna invest over a million pounds facility, that’s you’ve demonstrated some serious value over a long period of time built the right relationships, you know, been influential, so fair play to you. Because that’s, there’s a lot of s&c coaches that would like to do that, but perhaps don’t realise what the bit in the middle looks like?
Julie Gooderick
Yeah. And I think I think it’s interesting, because I think the bit in the middle looks different for each person. But I think what is an each environment, you know, each school’s going to be unique, isn’t it? And its approach, but I think what’s really interesting is, as I said, at the start just keeping your eyes open for actually, where’s the interest, you know, our girls peeping around the door, and you know, saying, Hey, can I do that, and if they are, drag them in, you know, get it going. So just be kind of reactive to those progressive opportunities that you see as much as you can. And, you know, note things down, test them two or three times a year so that you’ve got that data to present. And when they you know, when they win the national cups, make sure you get your name on that as well, you know, although they did s&c This year, and look, we’ve won this national title, and all of a sudden the burst is starting to get interested, you know, because that’s kind of building the rest of their school, isn’t it? You know, every time somebody gets into junior Wimbledon, make sure that the bursar and the influential figures are anchoring that success onto your programme. Okay, which 100% is, of course, it’s not your programme, but you are a contributing factor into that. And sometimes they don’t make those connections. You know, so be almost a bit audacious in Oh, yeah. Because she’s been doing the gym this year, and she’s worked on x y Zed, and you can really see that in a tennis game and formulate the links for them, you know, because they’re not the experts in this field. And you are, so sometimes people need it on a plate to see actually. Okay, They worked harder, and they achieved this success. So the key person in here is our athletic development department.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s really key as well, like one of the things that I mean, after you’ve had your eyes open, it seems so obvious, but obviously, you know, in all the other areas of school life, they’re getting, you know, assessed in some format, right? Whether it’s Maths, English, PE, wherever, so you’re seeing grades, and you’re seeing where people are. But often, some people are just delivering a programme, not showing like a before and after, here’s how much someone’s improved or, you know, and that could be anything, right? It could be a 10 metre sprint, it could be a wellness score, like you in some ways, as you said, because you’re the expert, you almost get to create your own metric that you’re going to report. Yeah, by doing that, you’re demonstrating that value, and people can buy into that. But if it’s intangible, and it’s like, well, the kids really enjoy it. It’s like, well, yeah, then it’s just the equivalent of an after school activity. That’s optional. And you know, they could go and do.
Julie Gooderick
I mean, they enjoy running around the field don’t know, but you know, it doesn’t doesn’t mean anything. So, yes, you have to show something more than enjoyment. And I think like you said, it’s interesting, because you can just kind of create your own metric Can’t you and I, I would test the girls three times a year on a on a whole battery. But once a year, I would put together an annual progression report, which I would send to my director of score all of P bursts, like, and they probably didn’t even read it for the first two years. But it doesn’t matter. Just spam them with that, because you know what, one day they will look at it and they’ll see actually, yeah, they’re starting to improve. And there’s there’s value coming in here.
Rob Anderson
One of the areas that I guess I’ve certainly started becoming more and more interested in thinking is more and more valuable, both in the private sector where I’m working, but equally in the school environment, is almost starting to use the same terminology or the same kind of way of thinking about things. So one thing I’m often really surprised by is the number of s&c coaches that are working at school, but don’t have a demonstrable curriculum of how they’re getting an athlete from A to B. So here’s, here’s how we’re going to walk in from you come in day one you’ve never trained to, you know, it’s going to take us X amount of months, and then you’re going to try a back squat. Whereas a maths teacher can do that an English teacher can do that, and say, This is the curriculum for the year, whatever. But there’s a lot of coaches operating in a school where it seems to be either in their head, or you know, in the ether somewhere, but taking the time to write it down. And and it’s like anything, right evolves and becomes a live document. But to be able to say, hey, this, just like your message as a curriculum, we’ve got one and this is what we’re doing.
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s really important, like you said, because then you’re only enhancing your communication with the other member of staff. And it’s easier for them to have that tangible feel, because they understand that type of language. But I think equally where that becomes important in the early, probably couple of years, actually of my programme, quite often, when new girls started, I would get an email from their parents, you know, what is this? Like? Why does this talk? Why is my girl want to try this with you? Like, what are you doing? And sometimes it was quite hostile, they were kind of like, what on earth is this? You know, why does she want to do a session with you, like, she knows, she can go for a run, or, you know, whatever it might be. So to have kind of that tangible document to demonstrate to people yes, you know, we’re not just running for an hour, round the field or whatever, we’re doing X Y, Zed, and we’re demonstrating this and blah, blah, blah, I think really helps in gaining that buy in, okay, from parents, staff, whoever else you need to convince really, of your of your worth and of what you’re doing.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think even you know, start to put those things together. If you’re, if you’re starting to compile a curriculum, you’ve got regular data demonstrating some sort of improvement, whether that is physical or, you know, mental wellbeing, or just, you know, any anything that you want to pin your hat on. And as you say, you’re communicating that to the higher ups, then you are demonstrating your value, whereas it’s easy for people to sit, where they are doing their thing and think and I’m doing a good job because these kids are moving better. But no one else is seeing that or appreciating that or understanding that. And therefore, when you come to have that conversation around, hey, I need five grand for some new equipment they’re gonna go for we don’t know what you’re doing. Like, yeah, well, we invest five grand versus because we don’t we haven’t seen improvement versus situation where you know, 1.2 million clearly shows you’ve demonstrate a lot of value. You’ve demonstrated improvement, you’ve demonstrated you’re contributing to that school environment. It’s a much different conversation.
Julie Gooderick
Yeah, definitely. And I think I think that’s really key, isn’t it? Because people sometimes I think people just assume that they know what’s going on behind those closed doors. And I think that was for me, you know, a rule that I overturned because actually, before I got there, not that they had any sort of gym structure, but there was always a real no watching activities type rule. You know, you couldn’t bring your friends to your music lessons, you couldn’t bring your friends to like your individual hockey lesson. And I think for me, you know, early on, I kind of recognise actually, we need to flip that rule for for the s&c side, because how else are we going to start to impact it otherwise, we’re only ever going to service eight people and no one else will know what’s going on. So you know, firstly, get that exposure and don’t assume that people know what’s going on behind those closed doors I think is really important.
Rob Anderson
I’m interested to get your pinion on what your thoughts are around the recruitment side of things. So a lot of I’ve been in conversations with, with schools and etc. And often what strikes me is kind of what you said where, you know, obviously the coach coming in as the expert in s&c but oftentimes the person doing the recruiting, be a director of sport, HR doesn’t really know what they’re recruiting for, you know, what the level of competency or qualifications or experience should be of that individual? Yeah, it’s an interesting, you know, situation, because then it becomes a bit of a lottery, doesn’t it? Some schools get a great, great coach who’s qualified to Masters level credits, you’ve got loads of experience coaching kids, some, some get some straight out of uni?
Julie Gooderick
Absolutely. But it’s pure chance. And that and that, I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head with one of the biggest problems that we’re facing within the schools s&c world, if you like at the moment, and it’s something I talked about, within my UK SEO conference talk. And I said, you know, ultimately, that is a real current problem. And, and I was talking about how I get asked to consult on quite a few startup programmes now within the private sector, where they will approach me with their kind of initial ideas maybe. And I will maybe help them build it. And then at that point, they’ll recruit and hire somebody new. And I went through a whole process a while back about eight months ago, where with one private school, we were discussing it, the programme, blah, blah, I put together what I thought would be kind of quite a good package. And all they had to do was recruit the candidate to deliver if you like, and then it was on the final about half an hour of discussions, and I thought we were wrapping up. And the Director of Sports said, but we need everything sports specific. And I was like, Oh, my word. Okay. So it was honestly just almost like, we’ve just wasted eight hours of discussion. Because if that’s still your thinking, after we’ve just formulated, you know, what I thought was quite a decent bespoke plan for this environment. You know, it’s kind of gone in one ear and out the other. So, you know, to, for her to have that perception still just kind of demonstrates that actually, you don’t particularly know what you need to hire here. You know, what you think you need to hire is somebody that can coach hockey, or coach tennis or coach a specific sport, but you have that you have that within your setup, so I can assure you do not need that. But in her mindset, that was kind of still what they needed. I think, also that the, you know, the UK FCA and obviously, I’m on the board now. So I’m talking about myself when I’m talking about the UK FCA. But we need to be doing a better job of promoting the UK FCA to ensure that that is a standard that is well known. So that when directors are sport, and we need to have that liaising with the private school network and the state schools network to ensure that when these directors of sports or heads of p, whatever it is, or recruiting for head of s&c or athletic development, they know that the UK FCA is the standard. And that’s what they need to be looking for that accreditation. Because you’re right, there’s many times and I can think of a couple of programmes off the top of my head, which have graduate coaches going in, and I’m sure that they’re doing their best work. But ultimately, when you’re coming into these types of programmes, I think they need to be viewed as a senior role. Because you know, you may not be managing staff and the early onset of the programme. But that’s got to be the goal, you know, that you can manage an assistant coach or an intern and grow the programme. But it’s a senior position because you’re going to be managing a whole programme. You’re going to be writing a curriculum, you’re going to be delivering across the board, individual sessions, group sessions, you’re going to be liaising with other members of staff directors of sport Versa, is a senior position is not a graduate role. So I think, you know, directors of sport need to be a little bit more aware around that. But that’s up to us as practitioners, isn’t it to grow that reputation so that people can be?
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely huge. And I think that you could, you could structure it like that you could have a graduate coach position if the director of sport was knowledgeable in the area had, you know, experienced delivering s&c to a good standard, a good understanding of growth, maturation, long term development and a curriculum that they were like, look, this is our curriculum, you’re delivering this but to put it on the shoulders of someone fresh out of uni to say right, you need to come in here, start a programme, figure out what you’re doing, demonstrate value grow it like you wouldn’t do that in any other department but you wouldn’t hire an inexperienced unqualified maths teacher
Julie Gooderick
and just say crack on because obviously, yeah, disaster wouldn’t it be but yeah, for whatever reason, we’re not quite at that stage. And you know, it’s kind of what I was saying to you earlier. Like I think for me personally, I would really really encourage any practitioners what regardless of their experience or their level if you are coming into a programme view it with the vision of growth you know, try and find some way to expand it build it up because you know, on a selfish with a selfish hat on is going to be more money for you. It’s going to be more stability for you in terms of the role but viewing it as the industry as a whole you know, you’re doing a great service there by proving a concept and proving worth it.
Rob Anderson
Huh, yeah, no, I think it’s really Interesting like that. That’s scenario you described. I’ve come into so many times. I’ve always been a hockey coach, or who can also do with s&c on the side or a rugby coach who can also do a bit of S&C and what happens is, yeah, okay, they’re probably a good rugby coach, but they’re not good s&c coach. So, you know, and I hear the stories all the time from my guys who come to me once a week and tell me about someone injuring their shoulder doing a back squat one room, like this week, one of the season and you’re 15 years old, what are you doing? Or you know, you’ve got one s&c session a week and you do shoulders, like, I’m like, this is not this is not competence. This is someone who’s blagging their way around it, because it’s just been lumped onto them.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai