What We Do

Coach Core is an employment and education charity that uses a community sports apprenticeship to target young adults not in employment, education or training (NEET) and have them not only change their own future pathways but also become a positive influence in communities that need sports provision most. We want to drive social mobility where it is needed most, and increase activity levels where they are lowest.

Overview

Broken down, Coach Core is a charity that does the following 5 things:

We fundraise to support and develop young adults who have found barriers to engaging with education and/or employment.
We create a network of co-invested employers that can share resources, experiences and solutions.
We work with training providers to develop the apprentices, who gain accredited qualifications, experiences & opportunities.
We put the young person at the heart of everything we do, with huge emphasis on personal support and mentoring.
We create a ripple effect through the community as apprentices engage and inspire through their community coaching sessions.

If you'd like an in-depth look at our plans through to 2024, you can read our strategy here.

Snapshot

17 We are currently working in 17 sites across the UK.

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Coach Core awards winners celebrate on stage

550 We have supported over 550 apprentices and 150 employers in our history.

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90% 90% of our apprentices graduate, compared to a national apprenticeship average of 60%.

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Our apprentices

Here at Coach Core we want to ensure the opportunity this apprenticeship provides can go to those who need it, and can benefit from it the most. We do a lot of research on where our programmes are placed to ensure they have the most impact.

38% of our apprentices live in the UK’s most deprived areas

36% don’t have Maths or English qualifications coming into the programme

1 in 5 have a learning and/or physical disability

About the apprenticeship

The apprenticeship is a 15-18 month position with an employer, working 30 hours a week. One day of that will be spent with the tutor, learning and preparing for the assessments. The rest of the time the apprentice will be working for the employer, providing community coaching and supporting the business. With this, and all the additional experiences and opportunities Coach Core offers, the young person not only has a qualification for their CV, but also a coaching portfolio and tangible work experience that gives them every chance of success once the programme finishes. Many of our apprentices are offered full-time work by their employers at the end of their course, and 92% of our apprentices are in work or education 6 months after graduating.

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The ripple effect

The apprenticeship qualification we offer is the Community Activator Coach (a level 2) – our apprentices are trained and practiced at delivering sports provision at a community, grass-roots level. What that means is that the Coach Core programmes have an impact on more than just our apprentices – through the work they do, their communities get access to all the benefits that sport and physical activity offer: physical and mental health, positive role modelling, or the social benefits.

Our consortium model

We use a unique consortium model, bringing together a group of employers in an area to take on apprentices at the same time. This means that:

The employers can share resources and solutions to common problems
The apprentices have a dedicated tutor and a group of peers for support
Opportunities can be shared across the group

In addition, Coach Core have a number of national partners who provide support and opportunities across our whole network.

Here’s how that looks:

The Landscape

UK unemployment at the end of 2020 sat at 5%. But for those aged 16-24, this figure is nearly 15%… and rising*

16-24’s who are from disadvantaged backgrounds are 50% more likely to be NEET than their better off peers. 3 out of 4 NEET young people have been this way for 12 months.**

40% of 16-25s said their mental health had worsened due to lockdown***

2.5m children had no schooling during lockdown but 74% of privately educated children had were taught daily, for a full day****

66% of our employers said the impact of Covid was “severe” with Oaks Foundation finding 20% of organisations don’t expect to survive.

*ONS 2020; **Impetus 2020 study ***Princes Trust 2020 survey **** London School of Economics/Panorama

Support Us

Coach Core’s work is only made possible through the support and generosity of individuals, companies, trusts and foundations.

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Become an Employer

As part of Coach Core, we try to build partnerships with suitable employers who embody the same values that we do. Why employ a Coach Core apprentice? Developing...

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News & Stories

Get the latest updates from Coach Core, our apprentices, employers and partners.

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