Our great sport offers many valuable experiences and opportunities for its gymnasts and participants. These require people with the desire and motivation to make a real difference - by choosing to coach. Whether you are thinking about becoming a coach, or looking to build on your existing skills and expertise, British Gymnastics offers a comprehensive range of opportunities that will enhance knowledge and understanding at every level.
Becoming a coach
There are many routes into coaching; as an enthusiastic parent, as a gymnast, as a teacher, as a young leader through our My Academy Programme or simply someone inspired to be that person to make a real and positive difference. Whichever way you come to gymnastics, as a coach, you will have the satisfaction and pride in knowing you have helped others to participate, achieve and excel.
There are a number of great starting points for your coaching career, for example;
Award Scheme Coaching. This qualification is based on our Core Proficiency Award Scheme. It gives the coach a sound grounding in some of the essential and fundamental movement skills of gymnastics.
For each gymnastics discipline, we offer UK Coaching Certificate (UKCC) courses. Starting at Level 1 Assistant Coach, these set you off through the coaching pathway of your preferred discipline.
The journey of a coach
Quite often a coach will follow the prescribed coach education pathway for a particular discipline, developing sport-specific knowledge and expertise along the way. However, in order to provide as broad a programme of activity within a club, other coaches seek to enhance their knowledge across disciplines and activities.
Our programme of education course continues your development in both types of journey, with additional opportunities to learn and update/refresh knowledge always in development.
Part of your journey may well include acting as a mentor – someone who helps, advises and supports developing coaches.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
CPD is how we as coaches maintain, update and develop our knowledge and skills in relation to being a coach. Bear in mind that not all CPD will be gymnastics-specific. There are aspects of being a coach that require education outside of coaching skills and techniques. For example, maintaining recognised Safeguarding training, holding an appropriate first aid qualification, or attending a sportscoachUK workshop on Planning and Periodisation.
Examples of CPD
- As a coach, you can take an add-on module in Disability Gymnastics to assist you and your club to operate an inclusive programme; you could also add Freestyle Gymnastics to your existing qualification.
- If you are a Level 2 or above coach, you can attend Level 3 Technical Modules for your discipline
- All Level 1 and above coaches can attend our range of Gymnastics for All add-on modules. These are specifically designed to assist you to add breadth to your programme.
We are committed to developing CPD opportunities for coaches at all levels to ensure our great coaches remain current, technically sound and safe to practice.
The importance of the Education Workforce
There are a wide range of roles that support the delivery of great education, from tutoring and assessing to verifying that our courses are being delivered and assessed to the highest standards.
In this section you can find all the information you will need to decide if any of these roles are right for you, and how you can apply and get involved.
Becoming a Tutor
Becoming a BG Tutor is a great opportunity to further develop your skills and to contribute to the education of the coaches and judges of the future. You will receive training and support in becoming a qualified BG tutor and be paid for delivering our courses.
Tutors deliver;
• Coach Education
• Judge Education
• Other courses supporting the development of clubs, such as our Club Management Module
In order to become a BG Tutor, you will need to be appropriately qualified for the course you intend to tutor, be passionate about helping others to learn and gain knowledge and experience, and happy to go through an interview and selection process. If successful, you will need to commit to a programme of training and undertake a sign-off process under the guidance of an experienced BG Tutor.
We identify our tutor requirements based on geographical and discipline-by-discipline needs. Vacancies are advertised via the BG website and GymBlast and the application process is straightforward from there.
All new tutors will be expected to sign up to an agreed code of conduct, which helps to ensure candidates get the best education experience possible.
Becoming an Assessor
The assessment of new and developing coaches and judges is key to ensuring the next generation are competent, confident and safe. As an assessor you will need to have good technical knowledge, be confident in giving and receiving feedback and be able to put candidates at their ease. You will receive training and support in becoming a qualified BG Assessor and be paid for assessments.
You would need to commit to completing the Assessing Vocationally Related Achievement (AVRA) qualification (which we will arrange and fund) and will then be supported through your sign-off by an experienced mentor assessor. This training is delivered over one weekend with follow-up work and assessment practice.
We identify our assessor requirements based on geographical and discipline-by-discipline needs. Where we have a vacancy, this is advertised via the BG website and GymBlast and the application process is straightforward from there.
All new assessors will be expected to sign up to an agreed code of conduct, which helps to ensure candidates get the best education experience possible.
Becoming an Internal Verifier
If you are qualified and experienced as a tutor and assessor, then you may consider becoming an Internal Verifier (IV). The IV role is to support tutors and assessors to ensure courses are run to the highest standards, and that consistency and quality are maintained.
You will need to have good observation, communication and feedback skills and a real commitment and desire to delivering and maintaining quality education.
We recruit and train IVs periodically, and where we have a vacancy, these are advertised via the BG website and GymBlast.
Becoming a Mentor
Mentoring happens every day, in every gym, because developing coaches watch, take advice from and ask questions of a coach with more experience and a higher qualification. Newer judges learn a great deal from working with higher qualified judges when sitting together on a panel at a competition.
Whilst this will always be the case, we believe in providing learning opportunities for coaches and judges to enhance the skills required to be a great mentor coach.
Some qualities of a great mentor are;
A good role model
Great communication skills
Empathy
Recognition of different motivations, skills, knowledge and needs of the coach being mentored
Provision of supportive feedback
