The Huddle: Sarah Green on Coach Development

In a new spotlight series, ‘The Huddle’ will champion and celebrate staff working behind the scenes at England Netball who are driving netball forwards to new heights and leading a movement to impact lives on and beyond the court through our Adventure Strategy.??

As a follow-up to UK Coaching Week and currently being in the process of recruiting for several England Netball coaching vacancies, our third interview is with Performance Coach Developer Sarah Green .

Tell us all about your role as Performance Coach Developer. When did you first join England Netball and what’s your journey to date looked like??

I joined England Netball in 2019, literally right before the World Cup, after having previously worked at The FA for 11 years. I’d retired from playing football and I was thinking about some other activities I could do besides going to the gym and a friend suggested I went to a Back to Netball session.??

I hadn't played netball since school so I was a bit nervous but the Back to Netball session in Nottingham was really fun and I really enjoyed going to those sessions. After a few weeks, someone asked me to join a netball team. We went on a few socials to watch the Vitality Roses play and I just felt really inspired and that it was something I wanted to continue to be a part of.?

I saw the role of Coach Developer advertised at England Netball and I thought it was a really exciting role. The Netball Family was a community that I wanted to be a part of, and I felt like I had the skills, attributes and values that could be transferred from the work that I'd been doing previously.?

My role as a Coach Developer covers the whole Pathway – it ranges from connecting with coaches that work in the franchise pathway to Netball Super League Head Coaches to the Vitality Roses coaching team.??

For coaches in the franchise pathway, we’ve previously run coach development programmes to support those who have aspirations of climbing that performance ladder within netball and supporting their journey as a coach both on and off the court.?

With the Netball Super League Head Coaches, it’s not all about the tactical or technical aspects of netball, we also explore their practice as a coach and the reality of the role that they do. Designing practices, managing difficult conversations, leading reviews or reflection, having conversations with the media and delivering a pre-match team talk – all of those are areas that we might explore together.?

With the Vitality Roses coaching team, I’m working with what is already a very expert group of coaches, so my role is to provide almost like a second pair of eyes and ears. There are so many people wrapped around the Vitality Roses athletes to support them so it’s important we also provide that opportunity for support and for the coaches.??

Again, that's about helping them reflect on their brilliant performances, stretching and challenging them, offering a different perspective.??

More recently, I’ve been doing some work around athlete to coach transition. This is with both athletes who have already retired from international netball and current Netball Super League players who have shown some interest in potentially wanting to coach so we’ve been working hard to facilitate those learning opportunities.?

Back in 2020, you were named Coach Developer of the Year at the prestigious UK Coaching Awards. What makes an effective Coach Developer? How will you support the new Assistant and Technical Coaches coming into the Vitality and Future Roses and Roses Pathway environments??

I think being an effective Coach Developer is very similar to being an effective coach.?

There's a bit about knowing the sport, so having that sport-specific knowledge, and then leading with a person-first approach. For me to do my job effectively, I need to know the coaches that I work with really well. I need to meet them where they're at rather than imposing any thoughts or ideas onto them.??

There's also an element of humility, compassion and bringing a sense of lightness and enjoyment to what we do because you spend a lot of time at work and some of the coaches in particular spend a lot of time away from home. It’s important to be able to give them time and space to be themselves and reflect on what’s happening but then we know when to turn that switch to performance mode.?

Coaching is tough and coaches work really hard to deliver great sessions and environments for their players so it's nice to be able to help them think about their performance and recognise the ways that they’re having a positive impact on the team. Taking the opportunity to say: ‘you did a really good job there and reminding them it's OK to take some time to step back from that and go that was really smart, that was a really good decision’.??

I think it's also good to offer some stretch and challenge so even when things are going well, how could we be even better? It’s offering a different perspective and a different voice. Essentially a Coach Developer is someone there to support and coach the coach in the same way a coach does with their athletes. The role of both the coach and the Coach Developer is to make sure that the athletes put out the best performance that they can.?

Full details of the England Netball coaching vacancies that we’re currently recruiting for can be found here. Applications close on 14 May 2024.?

What have been some of your key moments / highlights working at England Netball to date??

If I think about key moments, I guess that first World Cup in 2019. I wasn't a part of that in terms of Vitality Roses staff but I went along and I helped in the plaza out the front of the arena. That still stands out to me as a real key moment where I think I understood a little bit more about how big the sport was – the number of people participating in it, the crowd, how good the team were, the staff and the coaches.??

The first time that I travelled with the team was a really key moment for me in terms of having worked with the coaches leading up to that and then being in that environment and supporting them and the intensity of seeing things happen much quicker.?

Sometimes you're working with coaches and you might not see them for a few months or a few weeks, whereas here you might have a session in the morning, you might chat to them in the afternoon then you have a session the next day so the impact, the questions and the reflection feels more intense in a really positive way. You can really notice change and those relationships developing.?

It would be amiss of me if I didn't say that obviously one of the key highlights from what is coming up to my fifth year at England Netball would be the 2023 World Cup. I'm really proud of all the work that we did leading up to the competition, the sacrifices that people made, the effort, the time spent planning every little detail.??

All the work that we did was so thought out to make the environment one where the staff and players could thrive, to challenge our performances, to stretch and challenge not only the athletes but the staff. It was just one of the most special times in my career and I won't forget that. Seeing the athletes and staff thrive in that space knowing how hard they’d all worked was really special.?

With your wealth of experience in the sector as well as great track record of developing coaches, what excites you most on the England Netball Adventure ahead in this space??

I am really excited about the next part of our adventure at England Netball. There are some really cool things on the horizon with the Netball Super League, with us entering a new cycle with the Vitality Roses and having some new coaching roles. That presents some really exciting opportunities for me and the coaching team to really explore how we're doing things.??

We are working really hard to make sure we create real clarity for coaches and that they feel a sense of belonging, they are a part of a coaching family. We want coaches to feel involved and engaged and that they are contributing towards the Roses way, getting more Roses ready to play on the international stage.?

We've already got some really good resources that we've been developing in the Roses space and through the Roses Development Framework in the Pathway. We’ve also obviously got the valuable resources around NETBALLHer, making sure that people know netball is a place for everyone and coaches are really thinking about that person-first approach before we tackle anything else after that.?

I feel so strongly about making sure that women know that netball is a place for them in whatever role that they want to participate – coaching, officiating, leading, whatever that looks like, there's a place for everyone.?

Hopefully as we transition through to the new Netball Super League, there’ll be more full-time coaching roles and I want people to know that coaching in netball is a viable career option.??

What’s your ‘why’ to continue driving netball forward boldly, unapologetically and fearlessly???

I'm so passionate about making sure that we continue to drive netball forward, sharing the stories about all the brilliant coaches across the Pathway and the fantastic work that we're doing for two reasons.??

Firstly, I want the Vitality Roses to continue to thrive and shine on that world stage and secondly, I want coaches to feel inspired by our work and know that they are contributing to the success of the Vitality Roses.??

If you’re a coach working with a team and those players aspire to be Vitality Roses in the future, you're supporting those players a couple of nights a week, helping them with the tactical and technical aspects of netball and their resilience, their confidence, their decision-making. Those players may go on into the Roses Pathway and progress through that and become Vitality Roses in the future. We value that and we want to continue to support coaches to feel a part of the Roses journey.??

Full details of the England Netball coaching vacancies that we’re currently recruiting for can be found here. Applications close on 14 May 2024.?

We know first-hand that first class netball experiences happen through great coaching. That’s why we need coaches across the game that inspire, grow, develop and retain netballers in all the places where netball happens. Find out more about coaching courses and workshops here.?