GBR team coach education update
Last year we made a grant towards coach education for the GBR team (see award article). Here we catch up on how the program is going.
Background
The British Orienteering talent performance pathway consists of 5 levels (more detail):
- Level 1 - Club coaching
- Level 2 - Regional junior squads
- Level 3 - Talent squads (North, South, Scotland), 15-18 years
- Level 4 - Development squad, 19 years upwards, targeting JWOC and senior World Cups
- Level 5 - Performance Squad, targeting World & European Championships.
The coach development program was designed to target levels 4 & 5, which require high quality staff.
Program update
2023 has seen the deliver of an extensive program across the higher level squads:
- 17 training camps for levels 4 and 5 (up from 7 in 2022)
- 8 international competitions for juniors and seniors (vs. 10 in 2022)
In 2023, 23 different staff supported the program, with 7 of those new to the Performance Programme in 2023, and their involvement was only possible because of the extra funding from the Orienteering Foundation grant (a total of 15 volunteer places funded by the grant).
Not only were new staff brought in, but the existing staff were able to do more. The thrust of the coach education bid was to fund up to 4 staff at each camp / competition, compared to the basic level of 2 staff (which British Orienteering funded).
So the pool of volunteers has grown, the group has high morale and is learning from each other. There have been just enough volunteers to deliver the programme; at no point has a competition or camp had to be cancelled because of lack of staff. Having a large enough pool of good people spreads the volunteer burden around.
Upskilling
Not funded by the Orienteering Foundation grant directly, but various upskilling activities have also occurred. The main comes from "on the job" training of the staff at camps and competitions, but in addition to that we have:
- Workshop given by Emil Wingsted to the L5, L4 and L3 coaches, on how the Scandinavians train
- Workshop given by Chris Jones, elite level British Athletics coach, to the L5, L4 and L3 coaches, about how top GBR endurance runners train
- IOF international team coaches conference. Very useful to understand how other national teams’ structure their programmes
There are several new things coming for the athletes that will also improve the volunteer coach’s knowledge and sense of team:
- Website for Performance - Knowledge management to store training plan templates, recordings of team calls, advice on funding sources, etc.
- Zoom call series - An almost weekly squad call between through the winter months to give classroom sessions on navigation theory ("how to orienteer") and other interesting topics, e.g. nutrition, recovery, etc. Deliberately short: 20-30 minutes, so that athletes and coaches will watch back if they miss them
- Attack Point training diary - Sponsorship deal with Attack Point to give athletes free premium access (for example GPS upload).
- Additional features in negotiation – To allow coaches to track athlete welfare
Conclusion
This all provides a solid base going into 2024 when for home sprint World Champs in Edinburgh, and the usual program of other international races, and supporting training camps.