Snow Australia set to launch Coach Academy

Snow Australia is set to launch a new project aimed at growing the pool of world class Australian coaches. The Snow Australia Coach Academy will roll out from next week, in response to the organisations strategic objective of improving and growing the capacity and quality of the coaching pathway.

The program is designed to establish a clear and robust coach development framework for Australian winter sports coaches.

The Coach Academy was piloted in September 2019, with a two-day lab bringing together 30 domestic coaches from across the different winter disciplines.

On June 9, more than 30 Australian winter sports coaches will embark on their Coach Academy journey, taking part in online workshops and training designed to maximise their potential and light up the future for snow sport performance and coach development.

Snow Australia Performance Pathway Manager, Ben Wordsworth, said that the success of the pilot combined with the current landscape in which are sports are operating during the pandemic, provided a unique window for acceleration of the Coach Academy.

“With the global pause in travel due to COVID-19, we’ve had a unique window presented to be able to accelerate the long-term vision of the Coach Academy,” Wordsworth said.

“The current mission is to develop the Snow Australia Coach Academy into a 12-month rolling admission, multi-facilitator program designed to match the vision of the Snow Australia Development Pathway.

“Coaches will have the opportunity to take part in live-remote lab lesson plans, learn from online curriculum video content and be able to challenge each other throughout the process.

“Not only will it be great for the coaches to learn from the many facilitators and field experts, but also to learn from each other and the experiences that each of them brings to the table.

“I am pleased to see how engaged our world class high performance coaches, including international coaches employed by the OWIA, are in the education of our next gen coaches. It is tremendous to have some of the worlds best mentors readily available to assist our emerging coaching talent during this time,” he said.