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Yachting New Zealand are in the process of updating their coach education courses and the way they're delivered, with the learn to sail course the first to be rolled out on the online learning platform.
The national sports organisation have been rolling out coach education courses for many years with the current learn to sail module formulated in 2012.
Not only has the coaching world moved on since that time but also the way education can be delivered and Yachting New Zealand have spent considerable time putting various programmes together on their online learning platform, Embark.
Yachting New Zealand coach development manager Peter Soosalu recently completed work on updating the learn to sail programme. He hadn't originally expected to be able to offer this until the middle of 2021 but the recent lockdown freed him up to commit his time to this project.
"I have been going around and talking to coaches, sailors, parents and clubs, as well as the wider sailing community in New Zealand, to find out from them what's working well and what they felt could be improved with our courses," Soosalu said. "These changes reflect a lot of that feedback and I got together with other coach developers recently to finalise those changes.
"We felt we were at a stage to make the courses more dynamic and more effective but also easier for clubs to roll out."
The main change will see the learn to sail course delivered in three online sessions before the participants get together in person with the coach developer for the on-water component of the course.
The online learning will allow participants to try out some of the aspects of the course and come back with questions for the coach developer from their experiences.
The two-day classroom option will still be available but Soosalu believes most will opt for the new approach because a lot of it can be done in their own time when it suits them and it will also put less stress on clubs.
"It will make it easier for a club to host it over a weekend when they might have club activity on anyway," he said. "The course is also up to five times cheaper than what you can pay overseas because we don't charge commercial rates."
The learn to sail coaching course is aligned to the delivery of Yachting New Zealand's learn to sail levels 1-2 that is offered to clubs. The cost is $125 and you can sign up here.
Soosalu said Yachting New Zealand will be adding more courses to the online platform soon, including the race coach course by the end of July.
