Coach Developer Learning And Development Programme 


Cycling Ireland are pleased to confirm that the 2023 Coach Developer Learning And Development Programme kicked off on May 3rd. 


The programme was launched to aid continuous professional development opportunities and help create a community and support network for coach developers. 


A Coach or Instructor Developer is a recent term brought in by Sport Ireland Coaching (SIC) to represent an individual that supports the learning and development of coaches or instructors (for the purposes of some riding environments, Cycling Ireland are referring to instructors as leaders). 


The support could be through formal tutoring of education courses or informal settings such as workshops, conferences, webinars or with a coach/leader in their own learning environment.  A Coach or Leader Developer (CLD) is likely to work with many coaches/leaders in one year; each of these coaches/leaders will probably work with a high number of riders in any one year.


Consequently, a highly effective CLD can influence the sporting experience of a very large number of sports participants at every level of cycling from Cycling Ireland’s participation programmes to the podium at major competitions. The better the CLD, the better the coach/leader, the better the sporting experience of the riders. 


This outcome is also reflected in the importance of the training provided by SIC who develop and assess our CLD’s. CLD’s are therefore very much worth significant investment in time and funding to build an effective coaching system. 


The hierarchical process described above is depicted in the infographic below:




Delivered by Active Advantage, 14 coach developers from across Ireland took part in the first online session on May 3rd and the programme will take place throughout 2023. 


The programme aims to build a community of coach developers through online sessions and a coach developer gathering. 


Cycling Ireland Coach Education Manager, Tom Causer, said:

"We are delighted to now be in a position where we can support our Coach Developers after qualification, as this is crucial part of the jigsaw in our coach education system that has been missing for a number of years.  We had fantastic engagement at our first online session and excited to see the progress of this new CPD programme for coach develoepers over the first year of its delivery.”