UK Sport

We use cookies to track and analyse visitors to our website

These cookies help make the website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation. They are necessary for our website to function and cannot be switched off.
These cookies gather information to understand how visitors interact with the website, such as how many people are using our website of which pages are popular to help us improve user experience. Switching off these cookies will mean that we cannot gather information to improve the user experience.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by a third party provider whose services we have added to our website. Switching off these cookies mean that areas of our website cannot work properly.

Cookies are small text files that can be used by websites to make a user's experience more efficient.

The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site.

For all other types of cookies we need your permission.

This site uses different types of cookies. Some cookies are placed by third party services that appear on our pages.

You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

Learn more about who we are, how you can contact us and how we process personal data in our Privacy Policy.

Skip navigation
the national lottery
Twitter Facebook Youtube Instagram LinkedIn
  • About us
    • Our Directors Team
    • Our Board
    • Panels
    • Strategic Plan 2021-31
    • Our funders
    • Who we work with
    • Accessibility
    • Contact us
    • Media centre
    • FAQs
    • Working at UK Sport
  • Our work
    • Investing in sport
    • Investing in events
    • Coaching
    • Powering positive change and social impact
    • International relations
    • Leadership, development & governance
  • Events
  • News
  • Sports
    Olympic sports
    • Archery
    • Artistic Swimming
    • Athletics
    • Badminton
    • Basketball
    • Bobsleigh
    • Boxing (Amateur)
    • Canoeing
    • Curling
    • View all
    Paralympic sports
    • Boccia
    • Goalball
    • Para-Archery
    • Para-Athletics
    • Para-Badminton
    • Para-Canoe
    • Para-Cycling
    • Para-Equestrian Dressage
    • Para-Rowing
    • View all
  • Resources
    • A Code for Sports Governance
    • Organisational Health
    • Annual reports
    • Board minutes
    • British Cycling independent review
    • Complaints and whistleblowing
    • Eligibility
    • Fraud, corruption and bribery
    • High Performance System Advisory Group
    • HR policy templates
    • Pregnancy guidance
    • Reports
    • Privacy policies
    • Publication Scheme
    • Recruitment framework
    • The Whyte Review
    • Tenders
    • Transparency and open data
    • Welsh language scheme
  • Jobs in sport
    • Explore career pathways
    • Jobs in sport
    • Submit a job
  • About us
    • Our Directors Team
    • Our Board
    • Panels
    • Strategic Plan 2021-31
    • Our funders
    • Who we work with
    • Accessibility
    • Contact us
    • Media centre
    • FAQs
    • Working at UK Sport
  • Our work
    • Investing in sport
    • Investing in events
    • Coaching
    • Powering positive change and social impact
    • International relations
    • Leadership, development & governance
  • Events
  • News
  • Sports
    Olympic sports
    • Archery
    • Artistic Swimming
    • Athletics
    • Badminton
    • Basketball
    • Bobsleigh
    • Boxing (Amateur)
    • Canoeing
    • Curling
    • View all
    Paralympic sports
    • Boccia
    • Goalball
    • Para-Archery
    • Para-Athletics
    • Para-Badminton
    • Para-Canoe
    • Para-Cycling
    • Para-Equestrian Dressage
    • Para-Rowing
    • View all
  • Resources
    • A Code for Sports Governance
    • Organisational Health
    • Annual reports
    • Board minutes
    • British Cycling independent review
    • Complaints and whistleblowing
    • Eligibility
    • Fraud, corruption and bribery
    • High Performance System Advisory Group
    • HR policy templates
    • Pregnancy guidance
    • Reports
    • Privacy policies
    • Publication Scheme
    • Recruitment framework
    • The Whyte Review
    • Tenders
    • Transparency and open data
    • Welsh language scheme
  • Jobs in sport
    • Explore career pathways
    • Jobs in sport
    • Submit a job
Popular content on our site
Investing in sport About us Strategic Plan 2021-31 UK Sport launches Environmental Sustainability Strategy to protect ‘Team of Tomorrow’ Jobs in sport
News

Coaching blog: Self-development and the end goal for sports coaches

Published 11 September 2014

These are the people who don’t get a medal, grab the headlines or set a new PB. These people are by the athlete’s side at every step towards success. Every early morning and every late night. Every training camp and every competition. These are the coaches of Britain’s most promising athletes.

At UK Sport, our aim is to support British Olympic and Paralympic sports coaches to achieve their potential, whatever their current position on the elite coach development pathway. We work with ex-athletes helping them transition into coaches, apprentice coaches, and the elite, multi-medal winning coaches. Each have a part to play in creating so many memorable moments as you will undoubtedly recall from Great Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic remarkable success in London 2012, Sochi 2014 and Glasgow 2014.

But what is a world leading coach? What are we trying to develop? What do coaches across all sports have in common and where do they differ?

Of course, every coach operates in a different environment, with different responsibilities and different athletes, but they all have shared experiences; from challenges and opportunities to success and failure, each coach goes through a series of highs and lows before reaching the elite level. But is it possible to really unpick what those elements are?

UK Sport are trying to do just that. We are developing a framework of skills and expertise – the Coaching Principles - that to varying degrees, all elite coaches will require regardless of their sport. We aim to develop transferable skills in coaches that work across all sports. If you know what the ultimate coach looks like for your sport, you can plot which elements are relevant for each individual and put appropriate development in place. We use world leading expertise to help develop coaches on our centrally run programmes, but the Coaching Principles have a big part to play out in the field with the sports themselves.

We do not proclaim to understand the intricacies of every sport, this is an evolving process where we allow coaches to interpret our Coaching Principles themselves, so they can refine particular aspects and skills which they find most relevant. What is crucial in one sport, may not be in another.

Our UK Sport programmes are mapped against this aspirational barometer of success, allowing coaches to see the development areas that need addressing and hone in on them. A key element of measuring development of the individual is to also take into account their strengths, to see if they can be leveraged to ‘super strengths’.

Of course arguably you can never reach the end goal of the ultimate coach. The barometer is always evolving and the learning never stops, but by having a yardstick to aim for, those with their sights set on reaching there have a little more direction. They’ll know what to put in their toolbag to help them reach their potential, become world leading coaches, produce athletes to win medals on the world stage and inspire others to join them on their journey.

This blog was originally published on Tinderbox

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

News

Team GB celebrate after the Team Relay event at Tokyo 2020
Connect, collaborate and change: Para performance sport community launches new strategic framework
18 September 2023
Simon Morton, Deputy CEO of UK Sport launches the Gold Framework at Bentley RLFC alongside, Stuart Andrew, Sport Minister and Tom Halliwell, Captain of the England Wheelchair Rugby League team.
UK Sport welcomes new DCMS Sport Strategy and updated Gold Framework
30 August 2023
Brad Hall, Arran Gulliver, Tayloir Lawrence and Greg Cackett of the United Kingdom compete in the 4-man Bobsleigh during the BMW IBSF Bob & Skeleton World Cup at the Veltins-EisArena on January 8, 2023 in Winterberg, Germany.
UK Sport announces £2.4m Winter Sports funding uplift
11 August 2023
Sport jobs in the UK
Find & advertise UK based sports jobs here
Read more
Our funders
  • Logo of UK Government reading Funded by UK Government
  • TNL partners
Who we work with
  • British Olympic Association
  • Paralympics GB
  • Logo of the UK Sports Institute
  • Sport England
  • Sport Northern Ireland
  • Sport Wales
  • Sport Scotland
  • Logo of the British Elite Athletes Association
  • Logo for UK Coaching
  • Logo of Sport Resolutions
Sitelogo
Sitemap
  • Homepage
  • About us
  • Our work
  • Events
  • News
  • Sports
  • Resources
  • Jobs in sport
  • UK Sport editorial policy
  • Freedom of Information Act 2000
  • Website terms
  • Accessibility
  • Cookies policy
  • FAQs
Contact
UK Sport
6th Floor
10 South Colonnade
London
E14 4PU
E: info@uksport.gov.uk
T: +44 (0) 20 7211 5100
Follow us
Twitter Facebook Youtube Instagram LinkedIn

© Copyright UK Sport 2023