Reflections on a coaching scholarship /coach development programme - 1 year on

If you had the opportunity to deliver an idealised coach development framework, what would it look like? What would you choose, discount, focus on, and how would it be delivered?

I am in a fortunate position in that, through the support of a commercial partner in Total Computers, I was able to give this some real thought in 2021. I’d long since wanted the opportunity to lead such a project, after my initial attempts to relaunch a scholarship with British Cycling in 2014 (after a programme had run between 2009-11) were thwarted by a lack of funds. The scholarship that launched in January 2022 is a funded two-year journey including free coaching courses, access to a coach developer, opportunities to support British Cycling coaching teams, and further opportunities to develop (like at major events). 18 scholars were recruited for 2022.

I’m sharing reflections here with a view to pique interest and discussion with anyone else working in sport, coach or people development, potentially anyone else who is looking to offer a similar programme, but also to invite scrutiny and debate. Despite the help of a commercial partner, the main learnings are not about the need for money, but the power of community, opportunity and trying new things. My main reflections are captured under four themes – please read on if interested and connect if you want to discuss or know more:

1.??????The Power of Community

2.??????Opportunity is Everywhere | Crossing Boundaries

3.??????Say Yes More

4.??????Get Comfy with Ambiguity

The Power of Community

If the scholarship is one thing, it is the community that the scholars have created and developed themselves. A diverse group from all pockets of the UK now support each other, share their learnings from different opportunities, question, and offer opportunities to develop each other. Why?

The group of 18 scholars started their journey in January 2022. Some knew each other, but many didn’t. The induction period consisted of three webinars, including getting to know each other, reflective practice, then a reflective session on the key learnings from the 2-day launch event workshop, held in Manchester.

At the first webinar, the scholars agreed how they would ‘be’ with one another. Here is what they committed to:

This was written up and shared. I had no input – it was all created by them. I loved it.

Over the year they have come together in different ways:

·??????They set up a WhatsApp group to regularly communicate, which is well used I’m told

·??????Listening Circles – monthly webinars with keynote speakers and discussions

·??????Courses – many end up on the same courses together

·??????Coaching opportunities – many have supported Talent ID sessions and other camps where they cross paths

·??????Events – like visiting the LTA or the National Track Championships

·??????On social – they were all asked to follow each other on social media and support one another there

What I beleive this has delivered is a gradual and consistent strengthening of the community over the year, which now is a strong network of aspirant career coaches supporting each other forward.

A strong community drives the programme forward too behind the scenes. It would be impossible to offer the number of opportunities we have, the support we have and the structure if colleagues at British Cycling, coach developers and the wider sport community were not so bought in. To quote Rudyard Kipling and The Law of the Jungle, “the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack”.

Summary: If you are to embark on a similar programme, focus on establishing the community first. It's (usually) cheap and extremely powerful, but not necessarily easy to do.

Opportunity is Everywhere

If you were to list all the local opportunities in sport (or beyond sport) within a 25-mile radius of where you live, how many opportunities would you find? How many in 50, 75 or 100 miles? Do you find opportunities in grassroots, talent and high performance, in single sports or multiple sports? Likely yes – as opportunity is everywhere.

My role in the scholarship has been to find opportunities to support the scholars development. What activity are the Talent team doing and what support do they need? What about the Great Britain Cycling Team? Who is available to give some insights for the next Listening Circles? Which grassroots clubs or community initiatives need support? What major events might we be able to use to support coach development? Who are my connections in the sporting world that can help provide some opportunities? But also, the scholars have been asked to lead on finding opportunities and are also supported by British Cycling’s regional teams, or Welsh Cycling & Scottish Cycling.

What has come from this is a wealth of opportunity across different contexts and levels, providing opportunities to coach, to support coaches, to observe different environments. This is an approach known as ‘crossing boundaries’ that a coach developer from Nottingham University, Pete Holmes (who, related to community, I met during a day where I hosted UK Coaching at the National Cycling Centre) informed me of – that was already being implemented through the scholarship programme, but actually has a term.

Here are examples of some of the opportunities we’ve offered:

???????Monthly ‘Listening Circles’ - with guest speakers, including Chris Newton, Helen Scott MBE, Matt Ellis, Greg Illingworth, Naomi Johnston & Kaarle McCulloch

???????Coach development opportunities provided at the National Track Championships, National Madison and?Omnium Championships, UCI BMX Supercross, UCI Track Nations Cup, UCI Downhill World Cup, the Loughborough Cycling Festival and Track Champions League.

???????Scholars invited to observe pre-Commonwealth Games camp at Derby Arena

???????GBCT have invited scholars to support camp activity, including with Junior Academy and Para Foundation squads

???????Scholars have supported activity across our Talent Development delivery?including at the European Junior Road Championships, the Sprint Talent ID sessions, Para Talent ID sessions, National Schools of Racing and the Kadeena Cox Academy testing.

???????A Women's Coaches Community of Practice has been established, led by former UK Sport Strategy Advisor, Deena Blacking, and including female coaches from GBCT, Talent and the scholarship programme.

???????One scholar has been to Kenya to support coach development at Ineos Grenadiers Academy and two are off to Tenerife to support DiSE in January.

???????Scholars have been invited to support the Royal British Legion around the Invictus Games

How much do you think all this cost? How much does it cost to cross boundaries? A clue – not a lot (for the amount delivered). The vast majority is delivered around existing activity, or online, using expertise within British Cycling and beyond. We pay coach developers of course, for some tickets around events, and expenses are covered for some events for some scholars if it supports their development journey. But in the main, we have provided a rich programme at minimal cost, possible because opportunity is everywhere.

Now, one of the things that I hadn’t considered that links The Power of Community and Opportunity is Everywhere – scholars have started offering opportunities to each other from their own worlds, including in labs at universities, on elite racing teams and on the World Tour. From little seeds grow mighty trees.

Summary: Consider about the local, regional and national opportunities that you may be able to use to offer rich and affordable coach development opportunities.

Say Yes More

This was actually a reflection from a scholar at the Track Champions League but on personal reflection, it applies to me and the programme too. And when I thought about it more, I realised how open colleagues and the sporting community had been to providing opportunity – there was lots of saying yes to make such a programme work.

For the scholars, it was around opportunity. Would you like to have a supported coach development opportunity at the Track Nationals? Yes. Are you available at short notice to support the GB Cycling Team at an MTB camp in Bradford? Yes. Would you like to be the first to pilot a new skills award? Yes.

For colleagues, I might ask if I could have tickets to an event to help with cost. I got a yes. Do you need any help at upcoming talent development centres or camps? Once more a yes. Would you mind joining a webinar on a Monday evening to give insights into your world as an elite coach? Yes.

For connections in sport, for example, I asked Merlin van der Braam from the LTA if we could visit for a day of insights – it was a yes.

When I was asked by Tom Hartley at UK Coaching if I could host a coach development day for the Focus and Horizon programmes, I too said yes. When Coach Core asked for the same for the Manchester cohort of their apprenticeship programme, I said yes. In return, I have had follow up conversations with those that attended these days who can support the scholarship and other programmes in the future.

The scholars that have said yes to the most opportunities have seen the greatest development and exploited to the maximum the opportunities to cross boundaries, in turn getting exposure to a world they may be a part of at a later date. I have benefited by being able to provide opportunity and learning from the outcomes, as well as growing my network. And I’m sure others have benefited to – in learning from things that have and haven’t worked. As Richard Branson said “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”

Summary: The sporting world is incredibly open to collaboration and partnership. Always ask, and always support someone that needs help if you can.

Get comfy with ambiguity

You could argue that the downside of offering so much opportunity to a lot of scholars (18!) and having a large network bought in to providing opportunity across different contexts and domains could increase ambiguity to a discomforting level. This is exacerbated by the outcomes of the scholarship not being totally defined. As with many a journey, you don’t always know where you will end up – and that is fine.

So, why run a scholarship programme? Well, we (British Cycling & Total Computers) want to provide life changing opportunities for aspirant career coaches, first and foremost. But we also want to test new approaches to coach development, marketing to new audiences and challenge how we diversify the cycling workforce. To do this, we need to test and learn – in perfect and imperfect ways, so we know what we want to move forward with.

Not every opportunity is designed with a perfect curriculum and clear outcomes – and that is fine. We could spend a long time designing the ‘perfect’ intervention – all the while knowing much of it may be forgotten, irrelevant, or just delivered at the wrong time. I also have no idea what scholars are doing most of the time – which is also fine. I just know through feedback from my network if they are accessing opportunities, engaging with the programme as well as hearing from them on what is useful. If we are too defined with perfect outcomes, we may miss some emergent opportunities.

The focus then is on providing opportunities to cross boundaries and leave it to the coach, supported by their developer and reflective practice, to make sense of their encounters. Coaches will draw on the network of scholars to support this sense making. In turn, aspirations and paths may change depending on what is encountered, with a variety of outcomes, for example:

·??????One scholar began her journey as a teacher but realised her ambitions are in cycling – and is now employed as a City Academy Coach with British Cycling having volunteered through the scholarship on that project.

·??????One scholar, who had thought the scholarship was just around free courses, is now on the Para foundation squad as a pilot and has gained employment at a college cycling academy, Oaklands Wolves.

·??????One scholar who showed talent in developing content has been offered opportunities to support developing content with the regional and national teams with British Cycling.

·??????One scholar has progressed to a Directeur Sportif on the womens world tour and is offering opportunities in her world for other scholars to develop.

There are many more examples I could share of different paths being taken which we couldn't have guessed at the start. What we have then is loads of ambiguity but great outcomes, born out of simply providing a variety of opportunity and connections to help scholars along whatever path they may take. All of this is great! If you can handle the ambiguity….

Summary: Be brave, test and learn, embrace failure and learn from it. Don't let perfection get in the way of progress.

So what’s next?

Well, we’ve recruited 23 more scholars to join the programme in 2023 so will have loads more learnings to share next year no doubt. We’re:

·??????Dialling up the community aspects – including more focussed communities of practice, including around performance lifestyle, community coaching and high performance, as well as connecting the 2022 and 2023 cohorts

·??????Adjusting the coach developer role – to dial up the sense making aspects of the varied opportunities and communities scholars are a part of

·??????Providing more opportunity – with all who will have us, embracing the chaos, as well as adjusting the reflective practice that helps with the sense making of all on offer.

Thanks for reading if you got this far. Please reach out if you would like to chat through.

Thanks to our friends and partners at Total Computers for making it all possible