Great Coaching Skills

Taking time to plan your session and review based on safety, including physical, perceived and social safety, is a great way to ensure that the people taking part can engage fully in your session, have fun and develop a positive relationship with being active.

Working to understand the people in your session can help. 

REFLECT: What makes people in your sessions more nervous? 

Try to avoid these situations in your planning, facilitation and delivery.

CONSIDER: How you could support people who feel nervous in your session.

Things can change quickly in your session, it is important to be dynamic here.

REFLECT: Where else do you use observation of the group to help your coaching?

CONSIDER: Monitoring levels of enthusiasm, pace and proximity to hazards.

Maintaining focus on an activity can help people to remain safe and distract from other anxieties in a session.

REFLECT: What are the different ways you communicate with your group?

CONSIDER: Providing information during natural breaks in activity.

Great organisation is a key part of great coaching. Being able to deliver an organised session not only adds value to the experience for those taking part and enhances their confidence in your abilities but also acts as a tool to control your session.

Being able to recycle equipment and spaces for different activities can save lots of time and create flow in your session.

REFLECT: How could you recycle a previous session in this way?

CONSIDER: Using the natural environment to identify spaces for your activities.

This could be by number, age / stage, ability or motivation.

REFLECT: How do you currently get this information from people?

CONSIDER: How you might go about finding this information to help you.

How active, engaged or challenged are people in the session?

REFLECT: Where else could organisation help your sessions improve?

CONSIDER: What kind of feedback could you gain to help here?

A great demonstration is a key part of communication and great coaching. People can benefit from the visual and verbal cues they provide prior to attempting a skill or activity. 

Great demonstrations can build self-efficacy and confidence for the people in your session and their confidence in you as their coach too.

Effective demonstrations can provide lots information quickly, when people are watching.

REFLECT: What tricks do you have to know people are paying attention?

CONSIDER: Projecting your voice, using hand signals or whistle to help.

Forming a circle or finding an elevated position is ideal for this.

REFLECT: What shapes work best for you when giving demonstrations?

CONSIDER: Placing people with their back to the sun or other distractions.

Understanding what to look for will enhance the learning for the people watching.

REFLECT: Where else could 1-2 points of focus add impact in your coaching?

CONSIDER: Using a mirror to help you practice your own demonstrations.

Demonstrations are designed as a visual cue, not an audible one. 

REFLECT: Where else could silence help in your coaching practice?

CONSIDER: Rewarding good practice by asking people to demonstrate for or with you.

Repeat demonstrations, explanations or highlight others doing well to reinforce understanding.

REFLECT: What are your ‘go to’ questions to checking for understanding?

CONSIDER: Check for understanding all the time when giving information, not just in demonstrations.

Being able to explain things clearly and make things easy to understand is a key to a great coaching experience. Great instruction and explanation can help to build people’s confidence and help empower them to repeat activities independently. 

Rehearsing how to explain something helps to increase your confidence in delivery.

REFLECT: Where else in your coaching might rehearsal help?

CONSIDER: Asking others to give feedback on what they are hearing to help shape things.

This helps to keep things moving, it saves time and creates flow.

REFLECT: Where else might this help in your coaching?

CONSIDER: How you would get people attention in a sincere way.

Remember that simplicity isn’t always less words.

REFLECT: Who do you know who does this well? 

CONSIDER: Speak to other coaches and ask, “how would you say it?”

Ensuring that people feel comfortable to ask questions is key here. Setting out with a lack of understanding can have a negative impact on several areas including safety, confidence and, critically, if the session works at all. 

REFLECT: What are some of the ways you check for understanding?

CONSIDER: Checking for understanding in more than one way in a supportive way through questioning and demonstration.

Being able to listen effectively and ask appropriate questions to draw the information you need to understand and connect with the people in your sessions is a key coaching skill.

Asking the right questions at the right time will help to build confidence in you and highlight that you have individual interests at heart.

Be still and quiet whilst listening. Use positive cues like an open body posture, eye contact and smiles to show you are engaged in listening.

Listen to what is being said and consider the context, when and how they are choosing to say things.

Avoid trying to form responses while still listening.

Consider the time you invest in listening to others as your opportunity to gather information.

Frame questions to check you have understood what you have heard correctly, in a non-judgemental way. For example: “As I understand it...” or “It sounds like you’re saying...”

When using questions, context is key, there is no one preferred question type to use and some questions types are better suited to specific scenarios or can be paired for greater impact.

Where it is possible, for all question types, encouraging ‘active answers’ is a great way to highlight understanding and keep sessions active. i.e. “Show me”.

• Open questions provoke more than a Yes/No answer. They are effective when gathering information or checking for understanding. Generally, they start with Who, What, When etc.

What was your favourite part of today’s session? Who needs to attack the goal area at a corner?

• Closed questions generally provoke a Yes or No response. They can be used well to clarify information or confirm facts.

Would you like to start? Do you need me to help you?

• Probing questions help to gain additional detail and explore deeper understanding. They can be used separately and are effective as a follow up to an open question.

Why is it you like those activities so much? What do we gain by attacking the goal area in this way?

• Hypothetical questions help to introduce new ideas and encourage reflection. They are great for helping to shape things collaboratively and introduce tactics.

What might you do if I weren’t able to support you? Where might things change if we were to lose a player through injury?

• Reflective questions help to check understanding and encourage people to consider past experiences through their answers.

Would you do anything differently next time? When have you been challenged in this way before?

• Leading questions can help a person reach a conclusion, although you must be mindful not to lead too strongly to influence answers. You should avoid using leading questions with young people.

What do you think went wrong today? (suggesting something did)

• Deflective questions can be used to defuse areas of conflict. They can help to encourage collaboration and problem-solving from negative situations.

What can WE do together to make things better? What might your approach be, if you were to lead?

Being able to provide meaningful feedback to the people in your sessions will have a powerful effect for those receiving it.

Feedback doesn’t always have to be ‘positive’ but should be constructive and used as a tool to encourage learning, develop self-belief, sustain motivation, provide challenge and make being active with you fun and rewarding.

The latest understanding of feedback a positivity ratio of 5:1 is suggested to allow relationships to thrive.

There are several ways to provide feedback for people in your sessions. Not all feedback needs to be instant, in-depth or analytical, consider the different ways in which you can get your message across.

REFLECT: How aware are you of what you communicate non-verbally when you are feeling positive or negative?

CONSIDER: How could you use some of the below examples to enhance how you provide feedback to the people in your sessions?

• Facial Expressions: Smiles, eye contact or frowning; facial expressions can communicate a lot about what we are feeling. A positive smiling face to let someone know they are doing well can be very powerful. Equally, frowning whilst listening to someone could suggest you are confused or disagree with a person’s point of view.
• Gestures: Thumbs up/down or a high five; gestures can be a great tool for feedback to others and can have an instant impact. Recognition in this way needs to be timely to ensure it is understood what action drew the feedback.
• Body Language: Folded arms, open posture, hands on head; being aware of how you naturally sit, or stand is important as this will set the ‘norm’ for how you communicate in this way. Anything ‘out of the ordinary’ could be used as a tool to communicate with your group.
• Positioning / Actions: Standing in a specific position or becoming animated can communicate information to people effectively. For example, in the cycling event Team Pursuit, the team understand being ahead or behind by where the coach stands.

REFLECT: How do you best like to receive feedback on your own performance?

CONSIDER: How could you use some of the below examples to enhance how you provide feedback to the people in your sessions?

• Think first: Think about what you want to say and how best to say it. Be aware of the differences when feeding back to an individual or group. Think about how the way in which you choose to feedback to one person may impact on others.

Developing an understanding and connection with the people in your session is key to being able to provide meaningful feedback in a way that will help them to thrive in your sessions.

• Be Specific: being able to focus your attention one or two key points within your feedback will help to ensure your point is heard. Recalling specific scenarios to highlight key points is a great way to encourage reflection.

Technological advances have increased our ability to support in your feedback with performance data e.g. video recording or GPS. It is important to remember that not all feedback is data driven.

• Talk Impact: being able to highlight the impact of a behaviour you are providing feedback about helps to emphasise the importance, encourage reflection and reinforce the positive action you are looking for.

“I am so proud of the way you kept your effort levels up today, your efforts throughout the game inspired others to keep going and really made the difference for us, thank you!”

• Use Silence: When providing feedback, you are challenging someone to reflect on their actions. Provide time for people to think, a pause for a few seconds after a point has been raised can make it much more powerful.

Reflective Silence is all about taking time to sit quietly and think. Society today is obsessed with making time ‘productive’ that we rarely stop. Help this to happen more often.

• Check Back: checking for understanding is important throughout all learning, it helps support an individual centred approach in your coaching. Using an effective question or observing practice is a great way to do this.

“My coach always has my best interests at heart. They help me to explore my own potential and are always there if I need them.”