Sports development professionals support all sections of the community to overcome health issues, as well as encouraging young people to enjoy and engage in sport. This top-up year is part of our thriving sports education department, boasting some of the best university teaching facilities in Britain.
Our specialist one-year course allows you to 'top-up' an appropriate Foundation Degree to a BA Honours and equips you with a range of industry skills from elite coaching methods to sports funding bids and sustainability planning, while developing your expertise in community development.
During this top-up year you will have opportunities to complete a placement and projects with a range of our stakeholders and professional links to give you invaluable experience in the field. This broad education will arm you with the confidence and aptitude to work with a vast range of populations with varying motivation and fitness levels to use sport as a vehicle for long lasting change.
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You will learn to plan, deliver, evaluate and modify coaching sessions, alongside developing the professional know-how to research and secure grants and funding opportunities for sport and community development programmes.
You will learn to analyse marketing and management strategies in the context of third sector community sport programmes and understand the research process to be able to apply this knowledge to professional practice. Our course will prepare you to work across a range of initiatives that increase and widen participation in sports, education, employment and health; on a local, national and international scale.
This module aims to synthesise learning from this providing an opportunity for you to study independently and investigate a topic in depth. It fosters academic curiosity, an inquiry based approach, and the employment and application of research skills thus facilitating the development of a higher level of theorising. You will select a topic of personal interest you wish to study further and will manage your own learning during this module, with the support of an allocated supervisor for this period of independent study.
This module is driven by agreed aims to allow you the freedom to research a particular area of interest or to complete an area of study in a unique format. The agreed aims and objective should be closely linked to your award title and career ambitions
This module aims to critically explore how sporting organisations are working in partnerships and through a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle and support local area agreement targets such as obesity, anti-social behaviour and teenage pregnancy. The Community Development in this module will critically explore the inclusiveness needed to engage with the more hard to reach individual. It will critique the complexity of partnership brokerage and focus on what skills are needed to design, implement and monitor and evaluate (M & E) a Sports and Community development project.
This module will aim to give you an understanding of the necessary Physical Education and coaching standards, systems and guidelines required within the administration process of teaching and coaching. It will develop and extend your knowledge, understanding and confidence in the delivery of a range of physical activities and sports at Key Stage 1-4 (aged 5-16). The module will create an extensive provision of physical activities and sport teaching and coaching materials that examines and encourages progression and development of teaching and coaching skills. You will gain an understanding of analysing and developing any physical skills from its simple origin through its most complexes and advanced form.
You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.
You will attend lectures, seminars and practical laboratory sessions, and take part in group discussions, group work and presentations. You will supplement all this with your own guided and independent reading. You will put together a portfolio of your experiences, knowledge and skills, and will also spend some time on a work placement.
Work experience in the form of placements and internships greatly improve graduate employment prospects, and students who take part achieve excellent academic results through applying their learning in a professional setting.
Our specialist Employability Service and London location ensure that every year our students and graduates gain prestigious placement opportunities.
You will be assessed through exams (practical and written), projects, written assignments (including laboratory reports and case study analyses), presentations and supervisor reports. You will receive feedback on your work from other students and staff, and will also be asked to evaluate your own work.
The role of the sports development professional is exciting and diverse covering everything from organising sport-related projects, classes, programmes, coaching, club development and training. Sports development officers are involved in other areas of social policy from health, to crime to social inclusion and can find themselves working in organisations as diverse as charities, education providers, local councils, the NHS and often working with organisations such as schools, charities, sport national governing bodies (NGBs) and regeneration initiatives. They also work in partnership with government bodies to deliver government sports initiatives.
Our undergraduate courses have been approved by SkillsActive as meeting the required industry standard which will give the following REPs (Register of Exercise Professionals) recognised qualification/category of registration:
Our Employability Service can help you to develop your employability skills and get some valuable work experience. We provide workshops, events and one to one support with job hunting, CVs, covering letters, interviews, networking and so on. We also support you in securing part-time work, placements, internships, and volunteering opportunities, and offer an enterprise support service for those looking to start their own business.
We’ll carefully manage any future changes to courses, or the support and other services available to you, if these are necessary because of things like changes to government health and safety advice, or any changes to the law.
Any decisions will be taken in line with both external advice and the University’s Regulations which include information on this.
Our priority will always be to maintain academic standards and quality so that your learning outcomes are not affected by any adjustments that we may have to make.
At all times we’ll aim to keep you well informed of how we may need to respond to changing circumstances, and about support that we’ll provide to you.
Start: October 2023
Duration: 3 years full-time, 6 years part-time
Code: C615
