As uSports has grown, the opportunities which we are able to offer have grown too. Our philosophy is to 'put you first' and that includes every parent, child, school and coach. So we wanted to take some time to explain to you how we put our coaches first to provide them with opportunities for growth and development within our business.
Here are just some of the members of our fantastic team!
Apprenticeships
Recently, uSports has recruited two apprentices to join our team: Elliott and Rio. Both coaches are off to a fantastic start at uSports and are already a real credit to the business and we have high hopes for both Elliott and Rio on their coaching journeys! This has been a fantastic way to offer young coaches with the opportunities to gain experience with a hands on approach, with our continuously expanding timetable of sessions we are able to expose our apprentice coaches to a wide range of sports sessions to allow them to develop a solid tool kit of coaching practices. To deliver our apprenticeship programme we have partnered up with Aspire who deliver the training programme while uSports provides on the job mentoring and development opportunities. We would highly recommend utilising apprenticeships as they provide you with committed, dedicated and passionate individuals who can be a real credit to your business.
Placements
This academic year is also the first year where uSports has taken on a placement student from the University of Bath! Joe has joined the team as a part of his course to gain hands on experience in sports coaching. It is great to have the sessions available to allow both our placement and apprentice coaches the opportunities to get involved in a range of sessions and to really help them to plot out their future careers. Joe has been a great help at uSports and it is great to see the experience and skills which he is developing each day!
Work Experience
I began my sports coaching journey at the age of 14 by completing work experience and 11 years later, here I am running my own sports coaching business. Work experience can be such a fantastic opportunity for young people to get a taste of a potential future career, to get an insight into the world of work and to learn new life skills. We often have young people helping out down at our holiday camps for work experience and even at some of our after school clubs. I am still to this day so appreciative of the opportunities I had with my own work experience and I hope that we at uSports can help shape the future careers of many budding sports coaches! We even have some of our own uSports coaches who began their journey with us doing work experience down at the camps! Daisy and Fin are both coaches who are now working for uSports who initially joined us for work experience and both have grown so far already in their coaching journeys and we are privileged to have been a part of this.
Training and Mentoring
As well as the above opportunities, we also work to continuously support our coaches at uSports. We do so through training workshops, including First Aid courses, but also through mentoring and feedback. For all new coaches, we are here and ready to help for advice, suggestions and reassurance. We provide mentoring for all of our coaches to progress in their journeys. Be that in a surprise visit to an after school club, regular mentoring with another coach or opportunities for coaches to deliver different types of sessions to push them further. I would not be where I am today without the opportunities I have had along the way and you will always get out of something what you put in, so if you work hard and are motivated to progress then that is what will happen!