Coach & Official Development - Loughborough University Placement

This role is designed for students undertaking their placement year at university as part of an undergraduate programme. The role sits with the Coach & Official Development & Support Team, which is within the Development directorate at the LTA. This is an ideal opportunity for students studying Sport Coaching or related disciplines in Sport and Exercise Sciences, Psychology or Sport Management. The role will allow the student to immerse themselves in the tennis & padel coach and official development industry which represents over 8,000 coaches and officials. Coaches and officials are critical to driving participation in tennis and padel and this team leads on Qualifications, Continuous Professional Development and Accreditation/Licensing across the UK.

It is perfect for a student who competes or plays Tennis or Padel, as well as having Coaching or Officiating experience.

Key Accountabilities

Coach Traineeship Programme Co-ordination

• Recruitment and onboarding of employers & deployers who are LTA Registered Venues: Identify appropriate venues/businesses that would benefit from running traineeships working with the LTA Area teams. Design and lead on-boarding process, support during the traineeship and act as the main LTA point of contact for any employer/deployer who engages in the Traineeship project
• Coordinate the centralised Traineeship programme offer which annually will include event operations experience for 2 x National Traineeship Days, Communications to active cohorts, signposting to wrap around support available through the LTA core offer, promote relevant CPDs to trainees, and ensure the Traineeship Toolkit is maintained and supports employers/deployers to deliver consistent quality Traineeships
• Liaise with the Workforce Development Centre network who deliver the formal Qualifications associated with each trainee: LTA Assistant, LTA Referee, LTA Instructor, LTA Coach (Tennis & Padel), First Aid, Safeguarding, LTA Youth CPDs, Competition Organiser
• Support trainees with deployment and traineeship off-boarding advice when they progress out of the programme and into industry. Ensure trainees stay within the industry by connecting them to employers and deployers who can offer progression and employment post programme. This role will develop the template and process for this.
• Ad – hoc project involvement across a number of areas including; 1) Oversight of deployers ensuring quality and safe traineeships 2) Liaise with safeguarding team when/if complaints are made 3) Off board and manage deployers who fall short of programme standards 4) Support c. 50 trainees per year with queries
• Support with monitoring & evaluation of programme.
• Foster collaboration across the project’s five key stakeholders; Workforce Development Centres, LTA Area Team Delivery Managers, the Employers/Deployers, Trainees and County Associations
• Supporting National schemes such as the London/Scottish project being led by LTA Area teams
• Lead on general project promotion and marketing including any website pages, promotional content and collateral such as programme overviews/guides
• Attend university and career fairs, county cups, county weeks, nationals and other key events to physically have a stand to promote roles in tennis and specifically this programme
• Work to attract diverse ranges of people to officiating, coaching & activation
• Join up the business to ensure tennis leaders and activators are appropriate feeder routes into coaching and officiating, for people who have an aligned profile to progress
• Drive improvements with the LTA ‘Jobs in tennis & padel’ web page including the development of a proposal to improve and implement a holistic recruitment service for the industry
• Work with the Safeguarding Team to ensure that safeguarding and welfare is promoted and embedded within the Traineeship programme to make the sport safer for children and adults at risk.

Support broader activities Official Development & Coach Development

• Support Officiating operations and content development, including weekly authoring of articles to drive more officials engagement
• Enhance LTA Youth content on the LTA Coach Hub by providing better theoretical and practical written explanations and descriptions below our on-court video content that explain key coaching methods being used within LTA Youth
• Support deeper platform engagement of the Coach & Official hub by selecting appropriate relevant content to be positioned at bottom of pages, via 'Back links' to further learning
• Author new units of educational content for online consumption by officials
• Support administration processes associated with LTA Assessments – both LTA Readiness tests and Summative (Final) Assessments and any in-house courses that the team run across officials and coaches.
• Support Head of Coach & Official Development with travel, accommodation and expenses administration processes
• Support with ad-hoc data analysis, collection and review across key projects such as CPD, Qualifications and Accreditation
• Attend LTA Coach Forum events nationally, in October and November, to act as an event operations support/assistant