An open letter to all our grassroots learners

Here at FA Education, we are committed to supporting football coaches in the role that they do, at every level of the game.  

We recognise that we are living through extraordinary times. Football has not been immune to the global pandemic and the FA, like so many other organisations, has had to make changes. We have been extremely fortunate to have a strong, capable and large workforce to deliver support to coaches and teachers in recent years and that workforce has contributed very significantly to the strengthening of football coaching up and down the country in clubs and in schools, across the grassroots and professional games. In response to the financial impact of COVID-19, that workforce is necessarily slimmed down, meaning that there will be some changes to the way coaches and teachers are supported.  

Even prior to lockdown, research was showing that the appetite for ‘self-service’ learning is growing; people want to access learning easily at a time that suits them. So, we have been looking to where we can utilise digital means to inspire and support learning and develop a culture of on-going learning amongst coaches. We are committed to providing coaches with what they need in a way that works for them. Whether the coach wants to learn through a webinar, an article, an online community, a face-to-face session, a social feed or by being pitchside with a group of other coaches – all these things will be part of our modernised offering.

FA Education has a new 4-year strategy to further improve our support to coaches and to the game.

We are going to be reducing our suite of qualifications and opening up more opportunities for coaches to pick up the learning that interests them, without having to go on a course. Time, after all, is precious. 

We will continue to develop and deliver a strong portfolio of learning opportunities and resources, helping every coach to do their job that little bit better. 

Grassroots coaches will continue to access face-to-face CPD through their local County FA as well as being able to engage with regional sessions. 

We are working hard to continually develop new resources and free content for our digital channels including YouTube, The BootRoom, our online community and Twitter, and to make these channels as user friendly and engaging as possible going forwards. 

Providing high quality CPD across the coaching network, emphasising the value and benefit of continual learning, is a vital strand of our work; as part of this, we will be maximising our unrivalled access to the expertise within and around our national men’s and women’s teams to support coaches, as well as working closely with County FAs to support a localised coach development offer. 

Across the Professional Game and Talent Development, coaches will continue to have the opportunity to access in-club support from our expert coach developers thereby promoting the pipeline of playing and coaching talent for our national teams. The expertise of both coach developers and our national coaches will be made available to the wider game through a range of regular online resources.