Help your club develop – become a coach!

A personal testament by Matthew Clark of KFO

I signed up to learn about coaching to help my local club, Kingdom of Fife Orienteers, to assist newcomers at events. Nothing more than that was intended.

I started with Coaching Foundation which covers how different people learn new skills, and the sort of things involved in coaching.

Level 1 is the first proper qualification for coaches. Post pandemic I decided to take the plunge and I’ve never looked back. The Level 1 is a few weeks of online and in-person tutoring and practical exercises.

Every week there was something new. And it was always completely fascinating. We covered sports nutrition (I now consume oat milk and bananas at events), how to pick a skill to practice, how to draw up a coaching session plan, how to use mapping software to draw mini-courses, how to look through the library to find how other people have written session plans (you are allowed to copy what has worked for other people!) and how to evaluate your sessions so there is always continuous improvement.

Six of us involved in the course were learning new things every week. And discovering these new things guided by helpful and expert tutors every step of the way. We ended with an intensive but fun demonstration day in the park in Nairn where all of us got to show our coursework off by the seaside.

Since then, KFO and I have been keen to use my new qualification by starting monthly club training sessions, running new sessions for juniors, and reaching out to interested community groups to introduce them to the sport.

I’ve never looked back. Best thing ever.

To find out about coaching qualifications head to our courses page or contact suzanne@scottish-orienteering.org and help your club develop.