Further Education Providers Attend The Well HQ Course Pilot
Loughborough College hosted a range of further education providers from across the country for the ‘A Female Focus in Further Education’ pilot.
Twenty different college institutions from across the country joined together in Loughborough for an introductory session for The Well HQ’s latest course offering.
Attendees, who have an array of positions in their further education environments such as course leaders and sports coaches, have been able to join this cohort thanks to funding from CIMSPA.
Micki Ruggins, Technical Education Officer at CIMSPA, discusses the success of the day.
“The collaboration with The Well HQ provided a valuable platform for Further Education staff across the UK to come together, collaborate, and gain insights into challenging the status quo for females in health, fitness and sport.
“Dr Emma Ross delivered a powerful and engaging session which encouraged some healthy discussions about how further education staff can be an integral part of this movement towards ensuring there is a deeper understanding of female anatomy, physiology and psychology.
“This course plays a pivotal role in educating further education staff on the intricacies of the female body and mind, ensuring they can provide meaningful guidance and contribute to creating a supportive and inclusive environment for female learners, where they develop a lifelong positive relationship with physical activity.”
In delivering the ‘A Female Focus in Further Education’ pilot, the aim is to empower staff in further education settings with a comprehensive understanding of females in health, fitness and sport, ultimately equipping them to better support and empathise with their female learners.
With participants joining both virtually and in person, the pilot session introduced the main topics that will be discussed during the course. These include the importance of understanding the menstrual cycle and how it can affect performance, pelvic health and obtaining the correct sports kit such as sports bras and shorts.
As well as this, attendees gained an understanding of the foundations the course was built upon, the gaps in research both quantity and quality, and how to translate knowledge into practice and finding the correct starting point.
Performance Network Coach Amy Mountford from Denstone College, discussed why she enrolled on the course.
“A lot of our young girls at school probably don’t have access to most of this information. A lot of them are sports scholars and I think this information will support their decision making and their education guidance if they don’t want to go into sport as an athlete.
“I’m a qualified physiotherapist. We would never have done any of this and obviously we work with females. I think even as part of our kind of coaching qualifications, this education isn’t part of that qualification, but I work in a female dominated sport in netball so it would’ve been really helpful.
“Hopefully we can take this back and implement our own version of this as part of their education.”
Those in attendance will be educated in order to deepen their own knowledge to contribute significantly towards fostering a more inclusive and supportive environment for females in sport.
Participants will now begin to work through the course either in their own time, or by a series of live webinars for each module with The Well HQ.
Dr Emma Ross, Co-Founder of The Well HQ, reflected on the outcomes of the course pilot.
“I think the brilliant thing about today is that we know that there are 40 people enrolled in the programme, and the impact that they will have with people that they will reach means that there will be a ripple effect of this work.
“These people are working with the future workforce of the sector and if we can get this on their education agenda, then it goes so much more towards real system change.
“Some are taking it because they want to teach people studying sport about the importance of integrating knowledge of women and girls in that training, some have come because they work with women and girls in sport and the knowledge would be really valuable to them to coach their girls better, but that age group in particular, we can start making them really aware of where we haven’t done a good job, and start filling those gaps.”
We are committed to fostering the growth and enhancing the benefits for our further education partners.
Looking ahead, we have planned a series of webinars, forums and events to support further education colleges in guiding and equipping their learners with the essential skills required for success in the sport and physical activity sector.
Find out more about becoming a CIMSPA Further Education Partner.