iCoachKids travelled to Hungary for the 3rd Transnational Meeting of this Erasmus+ co-funded project. After the first 12 months of the project, the partnership aimed to finalise the European Coaching Children Curriculum (ECCC) during this meeting in Budapest. The draft ECCC was published a couple of months ago to a very warm reception. The ECCC is meant as a reference point to support organisations and coach developers wishing to assess and re-develop their existing coaching children learning opportunities or to create completely new ones to satisfy existing needs and demands. Feedback from partners and wider stakeholders on the draft ECCC was considered and a final version of the curriculum was agreed and will be published in the next few weeks.
In addition, and once the ECCC was approved, the forthcoming FREE three massive open online courses (MOOCs) were discussed. At this point, both the content and the pedagogical model were debated. The iCK group agreed that the MOOCs would be aimed at beginner and intermediate youth coaches, yet are confident that the quality of the courses and the ancillary materials and study guides will make them attractive to even the most experienced and knowledgeable coaches out there. In relation to the pedagogical model, the courses will incorporate a mix of taught content via videos and interactive activities, and reflective and applied work wherein the learning coach will be engaged in ‘real-life’ tasks related to the content covered on the course.
The title and content of three courses was also agreed upon:
MOOC #1 DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE ENVIRONMENTS FOR YOUTH SPORT
MOOC #2 CHILD & YOUTH CENTRED COACHING
MOOC #3 COACHING CHILDREN: PLANNING, DOING AND REVIEWING
The first MOOC will be ready by the summer of 2018 with the next two coming online in 2019. For more information, please visit www.icoachkids.eu
iCoachKids is co-funded by an Erasmus+ grant and led by Leeds Beckett University (LBU) and the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE). It brings together another six world-class organisations with a common desire to support children and youth coaches and a proven track record of doing so. These include Sport Ireland Coaching, the Hungarian Coaches Association, the Netherlands Olympic Committee, the European University of Madrid, Lithuanian Sport University, and the Royal Belgian Football Association.
