UK Coaching Podcasts

Are you a coach passionate about young lives?

'The Play Their Way' is the new podcast you didn't know you needed.

Curious? Listen to host Laura-Jane Jones explain why you should be tuning in.

To start listening, search for the 'Play Their Way' podcast in all your usual favourite podcast places.

Led by the Children’s Coaching Collaborative – a collective of 17 like-minded organisations, including UK Coaching, Sport England, UNICEF UK and Mind – Play Their Way aims to kick-start a movement of child-first coaches, organisations and people changing the game from the ground up.

If you're curious about the movement, check out the Play Their Way website at www.playtheirway.org.

You can also follow Play Their Way on social media: @playtheirway on TikTok, X, and LinkedIn, and @playtheirwayuk on Facebook and Instagram. 

Cal Jones is a judo coach based in North Wales. He recently completed his master’s thesis looking at Representative Learning Design in judo, including developing a tool to help coaches identify how representative their practice design is. In this podcast, UK Coaching Senior Coach Developer Marianne Davies speaks with him about representative learning design and how it can help us to design, structure, and adapt our practice sessions to support skill acquisition.

Cal gives us some examples of what this might look like in practice using examples to illustrate the two main parts of representativeness.

1. What the participant is interacting with (other people, environment) – Functionality.
2. Are the techniques and decision-making the same as seen in practice – Action Fidelity.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

Georgia Askew works as a Skill Acquisition specialist for Paralympics Australia while also pursuing a PhD at Queensland University of Technology. In this podcast, Georgia joins UK Coaching Senior Coach Developer Marianne Davies sharing examples from her practice and research on how skill development principles can benefit not only elite para-sport athletes but also everyone.

One of Georgia’s mantra’s is ‘Just because it has always been done that way, doesn’t mean it needs to be done that way.’ She explains that when working in elite parasport it is important to spend time connecting with and learning about everyone. Empathy, strong relationships, and understanding what is going on for participants in the context of their wider environment is critical for being successful as a skill acquisition specialist.

Georgia highlights the importance of individualised, non-linear journeys that facilitate the experiences and opportunities to grow in ways that relevant to the participants at the right time.

Her top tips include:

1. Connect to the individual first and be creative and innovative.
2. Work across the whole team if possible (coaches, participants, coach developers, strength coaches, etc.)
3. Record everything you do; session plans, practice adaptions, post coaching reflections, and reflective discussions. Try to find ways to reflect that work for you.
4. Don’t worry if practice looks chaotic or ugly at times. If you are paying attention to what you are doing and the results you are getting, you’ll start to understand what works and recognise improvements over time.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

In this podcast, Mark O'Sullivan (Head of Youth Development for under 8-12 year olds) at AIK Ungdomsfotbolls) discusses his work in youth development at AIK as well as his PhD research with UK Coaching Senior Coach Developer Marianne Davies

During the conversation Mark discusses a variety of topics, including why learning is non-linear and what this means for coaching. The implications of non-linear development on athlete development frameworks, and why he wants ‘as many as possible, as long as possible in an as good environment as possible’ in the AIK youth academy.

Some key points Mark covers are:

1. How do we learn to ask better questions?
2. What is our understanding of the learner and the learning process?
3. Does the notion of the nonlinearity of learning challenge many of these ages and stages models?

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

Professor Ian Renshaw discusses with UK Coaching Senior Coach Developer Marianne Davies his coaching and academic background, as well as the development of the constraints-led approach to designing practice.

In this podcast Ian:

• uses numerous real-world examples from rugby and cricket to illustrate his points and bring them to life
• emphasises the significance of intention and understanding what you want to achieve as a coach
• delves into the components of skilled performance, such as honing observation skills, effecting change at the subconscious level, and the significance of motivation.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

Are you interested in creating a connection with the people you coach? Would you like to build empathy, encourage risk-taking and create memories with those in your care? If so then this podcast will be a great start. Professional Storyteller Clare Murphy shares so much in this podcast, explaining how the brain responds to story, our history with it as humans, and how coaches and the people who support them can use it to galvanise and inspire the people they are working with.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

Coaching Development Manager at The Premier League Scott McNeill shares his coaching journey - developing coaches at Great Britain Hockey and the transition from hockey to working in football.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

Author Todd Hargrove shares his experience and understanding of skill acquisition in supporting functional and pain free movement.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.

Podcast with Dr Will Roberts and Danny Newcombe. Will and Danny explore the subject of skill acquisition and putting theory into practice for children through to elite athletes.

Whatever your role, if you're helping people to be active and improve, we're here for you. Visit UKCoaching.org to grow your coaching skills and be part of the community.