Part 1: Teacher Coaches Research – its (all) about time!

The main barrier to teachers in coaching school sport is finding the time, impacted by both in-school and external factors. For the past 10 years we have been experiencing a slow but steady decline in the number of teachers coaching school sport teams. In 2019, the 4350 teachers (15%) who coached school sport teams represented a loss of close to 1000 teachers from figures taken in 2009. School Sport NZ partnered with Waikato University and Dr Clive Pope to conduct in-depth research aimed at identifying the issues and prioritising solutions. A number of teachers took part in interviews and more than 1500 teacher coaches responded to the online survey component.

Unsurprisingly, most teacher coaches come from a background in the sport they coach, find coaching hugely valuable to their work and, with 26% of our coaches having been involved for 16 years or more, are highly committed to the role. Critically, the vast majority reported little or no input into extracurricular involvement in their pre-service training, more than half had no formal coaching qualifications, had not been offered any professional development by their school or sport, and, if offered, it often added to their biggest hurdle – time. “I would get fliers advertising the course but it was the time side of things, getting there and fitting everything else in as a parent and a teacher, it just put me on the back foot and I just flagged them.’”

While issues such as dealing with parents or lack of recognition and reward were identified as barriers, overwhelmingly the lack of time, both in and out of school, was the biggest issue confronting teacher coaches. “Time allowance would be the biggest incentive - being involved in sport changes the nature of the relationship, for the better, between the teacher and the students, but often the core teaching work, NCEA and family commitments don’t allow for the extra time and pressure that coaching brings.”

School Sport NZ has been presenting the results of the research to a range of forums including regional principals groups, school sport staff, sporting bodies and the PPTA Secondary Principals Council. Interest has been high with discussion already identifying a number of solutions. Examples of impact to date include some NSOs like BasketballNZ,  digitising coaching resources specifically for teachers so they can access them in their own time and Sport NZ offering a new and exciting programme for coaches working with secondary school age athletes - ‘Coaching for Impact’. (see Part 2 below).

You can find a pdf presentation summary of  the research HERE and the full report HERE. If you wish to have an in-depth workshop or presentation on this issue for your school or sport, please contact School Sport NZ

Article added: Wednesday 21 October 2020