Media Release
27/04/2017

Youth Stepping up in Absence of Busy Teachers and Parents

The increasing difficulty faced by school sports teams when it comes to finding enough coaches, as reported and commented on recently in The Dominion Post, comes as no surprise to Sport Wellington.

Phil Gibbons, CEO, Sport Wellington says “We’ve been aware of this trend since 2015 which is why coaching initiatives and supporting coaches were identified as a priority area for Sport Wellington. We’ve been actively working on sustainable solutions – developing a volunteer strategy to retain volunteers in the sport and recreation sector, and running our “Getting Started in Coaching” programme which encourages young people to step up and become coaches.”

Developing student coaches has been identified as a critical need by College Sport Wellington and secondary schools across the region. The wider Wellington region has the fourth highest rate of secondary school sports participation in NZ (60%), the highest of the major metropolitan areas, as identified by the NZ Secondary School Sports Council in 2016. This figure has remained fairly static over the last 16 years covered by the study, which looked at student participation and teaching staff involvement. However, during this same period, teaching staff involvement has fallen considerably from 38% to 29% leaving the wider Wellington region in 15th position in this respect.

The Sport Wellington “Getting Started in Coaching” project has seen community, parent and secondary school student coaches from 32 sports take part in coach training. Since 2015, 26 secondary schools and 920 students have taken part in the courses resulting in an impact on over 9,000 children. The student participation figures show that this programme, together with the Sport Wellington Volunteer Strategy, is helping schools overcome the decline in more the traditional coaching roles.

Yvonne Manuel, Sports Coordinator at Naenae College says “The coaching courses run by Sport Wellington are empowering students, giving them the tools to lead with confidence and learn specific skills relevant to the code. It then becomes a meaningful and enjoyable experience for participants. Participation at the school has increased because students are getting involved in coaching. It really is a win/win for everyone.”

Additionally, Sport Wellington works closely with regional sports organisations, including Capital Hockey, Wellington Rugby, Capital Football, Capital Zone Basketball and Netball Central Zone to support and enable them to deliver quality sport specific development sessions to student and community coaches, which allow coaches to develop their knowledge of drills and skills, teamwork and match dynamics in their chosen code.

“Coaches play a vital role in ensuring that athletes can participate in sport and enjoy it. Being able to give coaches support and helping them to grow their knowledge provides them with a great platform for a lifelong love of coaching and sports participation. This in turn ensures schools can continue to run sports clubs and teams,” says Kelly Curr, Sport Wellington’s Community Coach Advisor. “Students take part in five one-day coaching courses delivering generic and sport specific coaching content with the goal of developing student leaders using coaching as the context for learning about leadership. Moreover, students can of course draw on this knowledge and experience, and apply it way beyond the sports field which further enhances the win/win outcome of this initiative.”

ENDS

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