During your time on the rowing coaching programme in Australia you will be employed as a rowing coach. Most of the coaches who go to Australia work in secondary schools where they coach rowing to pupils each week for the duration of a school term or rowing season.
The coaches in Australia either coach rowing to junior pupils who are aged between 11 and 15 or senior pupils who are aged between 16 and 18. Most rowing crews train two or sometimes three times during the week and sometimes have a training session or a competitive event at weekends. The mid week training sessions are usually held between 6am and 8am and between 3.30pm and 5.30pm. Initially, you should get between 5 - 10 hours of coaching work per week. Once you have demonstrated your ability as a coach you may be assigned more hours.
Upon arrival, your mentor will introduce you to your school where you will receive specific information as to your coaching hours, the age of the pupils you will be coaching and any other relevant information. We structure the dates of our coaching programmes to ensure that participants have the first week of their programme to get settled in Australia, become familiar with the public transport system and complete tasks such as opening a bank account and applying for a tax file number (see Australia Handbook for instructions). Coaching work usually commences in the second week of the programme. On our longer coaching programmes people usually coach in two school terms. If this is the case, there is likely to be a holiday of a few weeks midway through the programme between the end of the first term and the start of the new term.
Sport Lived undertakes a thorough screening process on all coaching applicants and we only select individuals who we believe are suitable to coach sport in Australia. This document highlights the fact we think you are suitable to coach sport in Australia and that you will do a good job. Sport Lived cannot however guarantee that you will be employed as a coach at your assigned school. Your employment as a coach is subject to you meeting staff at your assigned school where you might be asked to conduct a sample coaching session. Should you not be employed by your assigned school Sport Lived will contact other schools and coaching organisations and help to arrange coaching work for you.
Coaching Qualification
Sport Lived require all rowing coaches to have a Club Coach Level 2 rowing coaching qualification before the start of their programme.