WPBSA Level 2 Certificate Achieves CIMSPA Status
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is today pleased to announce that its 1st4sport Level 2 Certificate in Snooker Coaching has been awarded Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA) Professional Standards Status.
The new CIMSPA Coach Professional Standards which has replaced the UKCC endorsed Status programme has been developed by employers, supported by CIMSPA, UK Coaching and national organisations including the Association for Physical Education Youth Sport Trust and ukactiveKIDS, who together make up the sector’s Community Sport Professional Development Committee.
The new standards provide an agreed reference point as to the knowledge, skills and behaviours required of coaches, and will inform the development of future coaching qualifications and training.
CIMSPA is working in partnership with UK Coaching – the lead agency for coaching within the UK – to ensure national governing bodies of sport can harness the power of a single, widely agreed standards framework.
What is a professional standard?
A professional standard is a documented framework to which any training and education can align itself to. It defines the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to perform certain tasks. Most commonly, this will be in relation to a job role (e.g. coaching assistant); an environment (e.g. in schools); a population (e.g. children) or an industry requirement (e.g. safeguarding).
For the UK sport and physical activity sector, all professional standards are employer and expert led and facilitated by CIMSPA. Training and education that is successfully aligned to a professional standard may be endorsed by CIMSPA – the sector’s chartered professional body.
Completing the coaching professional standards and integrating them into coach education for snooker coaches will contribute to the delivery of outcomes in line with the Coaching Plan for England laid out by Sport England.
Chris Lovell, WPBSA Head of Coaching and Training Development Manager said: “It has been a long-term aim of our chairman Jason Ferguson and the WPBSA team to achieve CIMSPA Status. Allied to the UK Coaching/NSPCC Safeguarding and Child Protection Training that WPBSA World Snooker coaches already receive, this ensures that our accredited coaches are operating at an equivalent level as other sports practitioners working in the sport and education sector within the UK.”
Learn more about the WPBSA coaching programme and how you can join our team HERE.