Saw this thread in the Parents forum and I wanted to bring it over here for general discussion.
What kind of training, personnel development, or certification is required for coaches at your gym? What is offered? Is it too much, too little, or right? Related - what kind of gymnastics/acro background do coaches have (especially rec coaches)?
At the gym I coach at (USA), the only formal certification that is required is an in-person training on CPR, and a few online trainings on identifying and reporting child abuse. There is some haphazard on-the-job training where a new coach will shadow someone experienced for a month or so, but it's not very formal and there are problems like only ever shadowing for one type of class, but then being assigned to a class for a different age group or skill set. Sometimes if there are very few coaches available, you won't get a chance to shadow at all and will be teaching by yourself right away.
This can be a problem because they don't always hire rec coaches with gymnastics experience due to high turnover. Some coaches have cheerleading or dance backgrounds, but some don't really have anything related. Other have very limited gymnastics experience (i.e. taking gymnastics classes when they were 7). I think this can work OK with, for example, some co-workers who are good with little kids and teach pre-schoolers, when there isn't too much technical gymnastics going on anyway.
The lack of a training system is a big sore point for me right now because I coach a couple of classes that are quite large (10-12 pre-schoolers) so we are supposed to have two coaches. But the second coach right now is a guy who is still "shadowing" and has little gymnastics experience, and is not very proactive in terms of trying to learn or help me even when I assign him something specific to do. So I'm dealing with 12 helpless five-year-olds and a helpless 20-year-old on top of it....
I'm wondering if this is the norm in the U.S. or what type of on-the-job training and experience is required for rec coaches at other gyms.
What kind of training, personnel development, or certification is required for coaches at your gym? What is offered? Is it too much, too little, or right? Related - what kind of gymnastics/acro background do coaches have (especially rec coaches)?
At the gym I coach at (USA), the only formal certification that is required is an in-person training on CPR, and a few online trainings on identifying and reporting child abuse. There is some haphazard on-the-job training where a new coach will shadow someone experienced for a month or so, but it's not very formal and there are problems like only ever shadowing for one type of class, but then being assigned to a class for a different age group or skill set. Sometimes if there are very few coaches available, you won't get a chance to shadow at all and will be teaching by yourself right away.
This can be a problem because they don't always hire rec coaches with gymnastics experience due to high turnover. Some coaches have cheerleading or dance backgrounds, but some don't really have anything related. Other have very limited gymnastics experience (i.e. taking gymnastics classes when they were 7). I think this can work OK with, for example, some co-workers who are good with little kids and teach pre-schoolers, when there isn't too much technical gymnastics going on anyway.
The lack of a training system is a big sore point for me right now because I coach a couple of classes that are quite large (10-12 pre-schoolers) so we are supposed to have two coaches. But the second coach right now is a guy who is still "shadowing" and has little gymnastics experience, and is not very proactive in terms of trying to learn or help me even when I assign him something specific to do. So I'm dealing with 12 helpless five-year-olds and a helpless 20-year-old on top of it....
I'm wondering if this is the norm in the U.S. or what type of on-the-job training and experience is required for rec coaches at other gyms.