SECONDMENT OPPORTUNITY
HEAD OF COACHING (18 MONTH SECONDMENT)
LOCATION: London
SALARY: c£45,650pa
We are seeking to recruit an experienced workforce professional with the prime responsibility for the implementation of the
Coaching Plan for England. The post holder will ensure Sport England’s partners have a frontline coaching workforce that is able
to deliver meaningful activity experiences that meet the needs, motivations and potential barriers of range of audiences. The
work will focus on making coaching easy to access, great value for money and a positive contribution to the wellbeing of
participants and coaches. This is an opportunity for an exceptional workforce professional to work in an organisation committed
to regular, meaningful activity experiences and lasting active lifestyles.
The post holder will manage the delivery of our strategic coaching investments to develop the paid and unpaid coaching
workforce in delivering effective coaching services to priority communities. The Head of Coaching will oversee the ambitious
Coaching Plan for England, a people strategy for a digital age.
Additionally, the post holder will oversee all aspects of grants funding programmes in relation to coaching workforce, including
the assessment of funding applications and on-going monitoring of awards. This also includes the relationship management of
suppliers and national workforce partners and their internal reporting.
Interested? You should be excited by managing the process for delivering organisational and cultural change and developing
people. You should have a track record of overseeing effective coaching programmes across a range of environments. In
addition, you will be able to influence a range of stakeholders and demonstrate strong communication skills.
Discover more by visiting www.sportengland.org/careers for further information.
The closing date for receiving applications is on Thursday 25/02/2015.
As a secondee the post-holder will remain an employee of their existing organisation, and should gain the express approval of
their employer in advance of applying for this role. Sport England will meet the employment costs of the secondment, and a
secondment agreement will be put in place between Sport England and the employer.
Sport England actively promotes diversity in employment and welcomes applications from all
parts of the community.
Head of Coaching
Job Title:
Directorate:
NGB and Sport
Reports to
Strategic Lead (Clubs and Workforce)
Level
4
JOB PURPOSE
The post holder will:




Lead on the implementation of a coaching strategy and plan for England
Drive sector engagement with the Sport England Coaching Plan for England; including its advisory groups and insight
programmes
Develop effective commissioning framework to enable intelligent investment in partners who can reach priority participation
and coaching audiences
Relationship management of strategic coaching support for the sector, including sportscoachUK
DIMENSIONS
Location
Key Contacts
London
SportscoachUK, NGBs, CSPs, national partners and other external organisations with a coaching remit,
UK Sport and other sports bodies.
KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
% Time
Lead on the implementation of Coaching Plan for England
- Champion the Coaching Plan for England’s design principles across all elements of Sport
England’s business, including the Sport England Board
- Identify the support, learning and development needs of the sector with regards to coaching
that will impact on our strategic outcomes and shape the plan and engagement and comms
accordingly
- Ensure the Coaching Plan for England stays relevant and outward focused by regularly meeting
with the sector, testing ideas through action research
- Shape and influence the development of the Coaching Plan for England though the use of
insight, partners and sector and societal analysis
- Ensure that the Coaching Plan for England investments and activities align with DCMS Sport
Strategy commitments to frontline workforce
- Create and maintain a powerful network involving senior personnel across the sporting sector
50%
Identification of and engagement with new stakeholders, developing innovative partnerships
with those who share our agenda
Raise the profile of Coaching
- Lead the direction and strategy of Sport England’s coaching investment through a high level
relationship with the service providers and especially sportscoachUK
- Ensure the Coaching Plan for England remains on track to deliver its global objectives
- Ensure high level stakeholders are provided with the right level of information
- Influence internal thinking on coaching by continued engagement in the sector
- Direct cross-directorate engagement to strengthen coaching support for sector
-
Relationship Manage sportscoachUK
 Manage the intelligent investment and measurement of strategic coaching services from
sportscoachUK
 Successfully relationship manage sportscoachUK to respond to coaching needs of Sport England’s
delivery partners
 Support internal colleagues in working with sportscoachUK
 Lead on identifying appropriate coaching issues as they emerge and provide connections
between colleagues and sportscoachUK staff
Support the Talent Team
 Work with the Sport England Talent Team to develop the coaching workforce to support each tier of
the England talent pathway for priority NGBs
Support local coaching investment
- Work with the CSPN to ensure that CSPs are supporting a high quality local frontline coaching
workforce:
o across Sport England Funded Programmes
o for priority audiences in their patch
- Ensure that social and cultural barriers to people becoming coaches or engaging in coaching
are identified and action research is undertaken to address
The above is provided for guidance and is not an exhaustive list of all accountabilities that the role holder may have over time.
Job Requirements and Person Specification
10%
20%
10%
10%
Criteria
Essential
Education /
Qualifications

Educated to degree level or equivalent vocational qualification or equivalent
experience.
Experience

Experience of coaching across a range of environments and audiences

Experience of leading the development of a culture with a team or organisation

Highly experienced in producing, monitoring and measure impact of short,
medium and long-term implementation plans

Experience of short, medium and long-term budget setting and management

Experience of commissioning research projects and implementing key learnings

Experience of relationship and stakeholder management

Significant experience of managing and/or delivering coach education
programmes

Experience of managing vocational training provision - both formal and informal

Ability to clearly articulate key challenges in the coaching landscape, and
priorities to improve participant and coach experience

Ability to persuade, negotiate and influence coaching specialists and sector
leaders / policy makers

Excellent presentation skills and ability to present theoretical concepts in a simple
and accessible format for range of audiences

Excellent communication and relationship building skills

Ability to set clear milestones and measure impact of projects and programmes
within the context of an overarching strategy

Knowledge and understanding of the benefits and risks of formal and informal
learning approaches to vocational training
Abilities / Skills /
Knowledge
Desirable

Experience of
supplier selection
and management

Teaching and
training skills in
vocational setting
Online Application Advice:

You will be asked to upload your CV to the system, following which you will be sent a confirmation email and password to
complete the remainder of your application form. Please ensure that you check your junk mail for this email, in particular if
you are applying from a Hotmail account.

Please be advised that you cannot save and return to the online application form. In addition it will time-out after 90
minutes. Therefore in order to ensure that you complete your application in the allocated time we recommend that you
prepare your answer to the following question in advance and simply copy and paste it into the appropriate box:
Section Three: Demonstration of your suitability for the role
Please indicate briefly (no more than 1500 words) why you are applying for this job. Insert the selected criteria from
the ‘job requirements’ as detailed in the job description and highlight any particular skills, knowledge and
experience you have in relation to these that you feel makes you a strong candidate.

Points to consider when completing this section of the Application Form:
o We are looking for you to provide specific evidence of your individual skills and previous experience.
o Give a range of examples – if possible, use different situations or challenges you faced rather than rely on just
one experience. This helps to evaluate how you tackle different challenges and not just your behaviour in a ‘one
off’ situation.
o If your example involves a team task, tell us about what your role within the team was as opposed to telling us
what the team did and what their general achievements were.
o Avoid making statements. Please provide supporting evidence. For example ‘I have excellent communication
skills as I deal with people all day’ is a statement. You need to explain what makes your communication skills
excellent, describe the situation where your communication skills had a positive effect and how.
o Candidates are advised to provide a fulsome response to this question.
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For any technical queries please contact the My People Biz helpdesk at: support@mypeoplebiz.com

Please ensure that you save your CV as your name for our reference.
Sport England will refund reasonable travel expenses (car mileage (subject to Sport England limits) and 2nd class rail fares) for candidates
with interviews at Sport England. Receipts must be provided for all rail/underground fares.