Firstly I'd like to apologise for the lack of blogs over the past 6 months... I've been rather busy developing my centre here in Staffordshire (www.tittesworthwater.co.uk) - it's been an absolutely fantastic journey and the British Canoeing accredited centre is now going from strength to strength. Open all year round, we offer a wide range of British Canoeing courses and other activities.
Anyway, back to the new Coach Award... this new award launched on the 2nd January. I think it's going to be a fantastic suite of qualifications, with 18 options to choose from, and a much more paddler centric approach.
Read more: The New British Canoeing Coach Award Is Here!
So... my latest foray to Scotland saw me successfully complete my Advanced Water Endorsement assessment - I'm now an Advanced Water Endorsed UKCC Level 3 Kayak Coach in White Water - there is no higher award in the current BCU coaching scheme that is open to new applicants after the last of the Level 5 Training courses finished in 2011. There are only two of us in the UK at the time of writing that hold both of these qualifications so I guess you could say I'm one of the first of the new breed of top end coaches coming through.
Read more: My Journey Through the Advanced Water Endorsement Scheme
Through delivering such a broad range of courses it's important for me as a coach to understand the needs and objectives of my students at the various stages in their learning. Why is this important? Well, for example, I may be running a White Water Skills Development Course in a grade 2/3 environment and, after a preliminary discussion with my students I find that I have one who has an objective to run grade 4 rivers in the French Alps next summer.
Read more: Understanding Student Needs and Objectives
So...I'm now a UKCC Level 3 Kayak Coach - there is no higher award in the current BCU coaching scheme that is open to new applicants after the last of the Level 5 Training courses finished in 2011. So I guess you could say I'm one of the first of the new breed of top end coaches coming through.
I thought this blog would help those going through the process that I have been through to gain an understanding of what to expect and provide a point of reference to the key points that I picked up along the way... So I hope it's of use...
Read more: My Journey Through the UKCC Level 3 Scheme
As our students progress and become more autonomous, how as coaches, can we vary our approach to suit the needs and objectives of the student, session or a more long term programme?
Well you could start by employing more student led coaching approaches that will aid longer term learning. By this I mean we move away from a more “Command” style of approach, such as the IDEAS framework, and move towards a more student centric style such as Guided Discovery or Divergent approaches.
Read more: Student Centric Coaching Approaches - Guided Discovery
Coaching in our static water or dynamic water environments is often a challenge. We do sometimes tend to concentrate on one element – the technical side. There are however three more areas to consider as we coach our students and this is where we look at the TTPP model:
Read more: TTPP - Technical, Tactical, Physiological, Psychological
