The workshops are open to coaches and volunteers from club, community, school, sport and physical activity settings, and are aimed at new and experienced coaches.

Sport Ireland Coaching has developed four modules to provide candidates with a basic understanding of children’s sport and physical activity and the best ways to optimise children’s enjoyment, participation and positive outcomes. The concepts of physical literacy and holistic development run throughout the series of workshops and will be covered in detail.

The four workshops are designed to be interactive and provide opportunities for coaches to network with other coaches of children.

Sport Ireland Coaching sees these workshops as the first stage of development and hopes to build on these workshops to develop a comprehensive education system for all those involved in children’s sport.

The modules are broken down as follows:

Module 1 – Coaching children successfully in sport – An introduction for coaches.

Module 2 – Child-centred coaching – Understanding child development and learning and its impact on how we coach.

Module3 – Developing physical literacy through Sport 1 – Coaching children to move.

Module 4 – Developing physical literacy through Sport 2 – Coaching children to think.

The coaching modules will be held on Tuesday, November 9th, Thursday, November 11th, Tuesday, November 16th, Thursday, November 18th, Tuesday, November 23rd and Thursday, November 25th.

Each session will be held from 7 pm to 9 pm via Zoom.

The Coaching Teenage Girls in Sport Workshop is designed specifically to support coaches of girls aged 12-17 years of age. The workshop was developed to enable coaches to create a positive experience of sport and physical activity for girls in their formative years and provide an environment where girls and young women can develop holistically.

Central to this are coaches that create a positive environment that encourages safety, fun, and healthy competition. In addition, it is essential to employ supportive coaching practices that reward effort for trying a new skill over winning, encourage learning from mistakes while staying positive, and promote integrity and honesty.

Coaching Girls in Sport will cover the following topics – retention, psycho-social needs, coach-athlete relationships, communication, and body image.

This workshop will be delivered on Tuesday, November 30th and Thursday, December 2nd between 7 pm and 8.30 pm via Zoom.