Exploring the factors that influence primary school community football Physical Education coaches’ readiness to engage in a Life Skills Coach Development Programme

Throughout England, primary school national curriculum Physical Education (NCPE) is often delivered in schools by outsourced sports coaches. Community football foundations are one form of organisation that provide external coaches for hire. Schools contract these coaches to deliver Physical Education lessons that align with the holistic aims of NCPE. However, these coaches frequently fail to apply holistic coaching practices in lessons. Moreover, the extent to which these coaches are prepared to engage in initiatives that enable them to develop holistic coaching practices is not understood. Semi-structured interviews of eleven primary school community football PE coaches were used to examine the factors that influenced the coaches’ readiness to engage in a Life Skills Coach Development Programme (CDP). Deliberative and reflective thematic analysis of interview data revealed that coach readiness was negatively impacted by a lack of exposure to life skills content during prior coach education courses, where instead there was an emphasis on physical, technical, and tactical skill development. A lack of support from and communication with management at the community football foundation also impacted coach readiness. Coaches also worked in relative isolation, despite expressing the desire to be part of a community of practice. Findings also showed that the additional responsibilities given to coaches in schools, a perceived obligation to undertake these responsibilities to maintain the commercial relationship between the community foundation and schools, and the low prioritisation of PE in primary schools, all within the neoliberal context of coach education and primary school PE provision, impacted coach readiness to engage in a Life Skills CDP.