If you love sport and want to focus on coaching, this is the course for you. The course has a strong emphasis on practical coaching experiences being applied to the sporting area of your choice.
Our sports coaching degree gives you the opportunity to explore coaching theory, research and practice. You’ll focus on contemporary areas of sports coaching study, including coach education, learning and practical skills. You’ll also develop your own specialised coaching knowledge, attributes and abilities through a wide range of theoretical and hands-on experiences. Throughout, we’ll encourage you to shape your own professional development journey and achieve the appropriate vocational coaching qualifications to take your career in the direction you want. We’ll also emphasise the importance of developing your academic and research strengths, improving your confidence, credibility and critical writing skills.
You might be thinking about becoming a high-performance coach, a PE teacher, a performance analyst or coach within your local community, or you could be considering starting your own business. Work experience opportunities are integrated into the programme. So whatever career you decide to pursue, work-related experience combined with academic study and a focus on communication skills will enhance your prospects.
This course is full of opportunities, including the potential to visit Utrecht University in the Netherlands for an exchange*. The University also works closely together with national and international researchers, coaches and athletes, who engage with our facilities and workforce.
In your first year, you’ll learn the foundations of sports coaching, aspects related to physical activity and sports development and begin to understand more about the wider sports industry. You’ll also learn about national and international sports business management and sports within a global world. To help you settle into University life, you’ll take a module focused on developing the academic skills you need to be a successful student.
Your second year builds on what you learnt in the first year. You’ll study applied sports coaching, leadership and management of sports events and global perspectives of sports development. The module on research methods helps you to understand the principles and methods that underpin coaching-based research. You’ll be able to use this to critique and understand the research done in the areas of sports coaching. It will also come in handy for your final year dissertation. In addition, we also offer optional modules for you to choose from such as process and practice in high-performance sport, sports ethics, and facilities and funding.
Work placement/study abroad option*: Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or complete a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about, but it will also give your CV a boost. If you would rather go straight to your final year, that’s fine too. You can decide in your second year with us, so there is still plenty of time to think about this.
In your final year, you’ll be able to develop your research skills in sports coaching through our research dissertation module and focus on a work experience dissertation within the field of sports coaching. You’ll get a personal supervisor to support you with the research and/or work experience dissertation. Here, you’ll design and undertake your own project on a topic relevant to your area of study, and more importantly it will be aligned to a coaching area that interests you. You’ll also be able to study other modules in the final year, and learn in more depth about advanced sports coaching, enterprise and entrepreneurship, and the behaviour change for physical activity.
*Depending on the COVID-19 guidelines and developments.
Applying for this course is easy. Simply add us to your UCAS account by using the institution and course code mentioned in ‘Key information’. There is no interview for this course. We’re just interested to hear why you want to study this subject at degree level.
For a full list of modules, see the section under ‘What will I study?’
