Mass-market coach education programmes are criticised for failing to recognise and work with coaches’ idiosyncratic issues and interests, offering coaches solutions to problems that have not yet surfaced. As a result, they can lack sufficient anchorage in purpose and meaning, which can limit their overall impact. Symptomatic of a transmissive and performative model of coach education is, we argue, some of the current crises that we see in coaching today. Where coaches’ learned behaviours (e.g., acquiescence to authority, uncritical acceptance of ideas) permeate the way in which they support participants, outcomes can emerge like those captured in the Listening Report—an independent review into aquatics, commissioned by the national governing body Swim England in 2024. Hinged on both of these arguments, this article details the development and design process of the Coach Practitioner Programme, a 12-month inquiry-based initiative by Swim England that radically reimagines coach support through coach education. We close with a reflexive account of the systemic challenges encountered when seeking to affect cultural change on this scale. Despite organisational resistance rooted in a preference for linearity, certainty, and entrenched economic models, we demonstrate how significant disruptive events—such as a major independent review—can serve as catalysts for transformative educational reform.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
McCarthy et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: