At UK Sport it is our ambition is to grow a thriving sporting system, this includes addressing the current under-representation of women at all levels of the coaching talent pathway. This is with the aim of more than double the representation of female coaches in the Olympic and Paralympic high-performance community by Paris 2024.
Female Coaches Leadership Programme
In 2021 the female coaches leadership programme was created, this work shadowing and mentorship initiative provided learning and development experiences to prepare female coaches to support tomorrow’s Olympic and Paralympic champions. The programme to date has seen 44 coaches across 20 sports.
The programme offered opportunities to shadow podium coaches operating in the world class performance environments and aimed to supply practical insights of what it is like to work in these high-performance settings.
Women Coaches Leadership Development
Following the success of the female coaches leadership programme we will continue to support female coaches in high-performance environments by uniting those that were part of the two cohorts of the programme via a new continuous professional development (CPD) initiative. They will be joined with approximately 15 new coaches nominated by their NGBs and approximately 20 coaches from
UK Coaching’s Women’s Coaching Programme.
The women coaches leadership development CPD 2023-24 initiative, will run from January 2023 to March 2024.
The aim of this initiative is to support the development of the coaches’ practice and personal learning to further grow the breadth and depth of the coaching talent pool across British high-performance sport.
The coaches will develop their current knowledge and skills and be encouraged to take a critical perspective toward their own progress and practice. They will also be supported to develop their coaching and leadership approach to help enable them to thrive even more in their own environments.
Resources developed by Loughborough University research around women in senior leadership roles below;
Women in coaching gender stereotypes 1
Women in coaching gender stereotypes 2
Women in coaching gender stereotypes 3