#PassItOn and share your best coaching advice for UK Coaching Week

Sharing great coaching advice is the theme of UK Coaching Week 2025 (June 2-8) – and at Active Sussex, we’re encouraging clubs and coaches across Sussex to get involved.

You can share your best piece of coaching advice as part of the #PassItOn campaign – whether it’s a piece of advice you’ve received, or guidelines you live by in your coaching career. You can record a 30-second video clip and share on social media with teh #PassItOn, tagging UK Coaching – and don’t forget to tag Active Sussex too!

The idea behind the campaign is that everyone has a coach who inspired them, and UK Coaching Week is a time to celebrate and share those stories.

We encourage you to reflect on the following questions: What’s the best coaching advice you’ve ever received? Or the advice you have given as a coach that has made the greatest impact?

Be ready to share, inspire, and #PassItOn as UK Coaching shines a spotlight on the coaching wisdom that shapes individuals, teams, and communities. 

To take part, record your clip, and tag in UK Coaching on Instagram, Facebook or Linkedin, and to find out more visit: www.ukcoaching.org/campaigns/uk-coaching-week/#ukcoachingweek

And to celebrate UK Coaching Week, we reflect on the stories of some of the great coaches here in Sussex below.

“I’m thinking about participation over performance”

Danny Hatcher coaches trampolining, and prioritises accessibility and inclusion. He is half-deaf and recently lost most of his sight in one eye, so his lived experience has helped shape his offering.

He said: “The point of the club is not to compete. If people want to compete, they can. We can help them do that. But I would much rather see 12 people spread over four trampolines smiling.”

Read the full interview with Danny, here.

“I would love to see more women having that confidence”

Danielle Lewis-Collins is a netball coach in Brighton and is a Sussex Project 500 champion, an Active Sussex campaign to create a local coaching community that provides support, development opportunities, and a safe place for female coaches, leaders and activators, to flourish.

In this video she shares her learning and advice, and said: “I would love to see more women having that confidence to put themselves out there, less fear of failure and more excitement about the possibilities that they can achieve through getting out there and getting involved in coaching.”

“The children are always going to come first”

This video is a great example of a child-first ‪Play Their Way‬ style of coaching where voice, choice and journey are vital to ensure children first and foremost love moving more and being active.

Neil Plimmer is the founder of Jolf (junior golf) and said: “The children are always going to come first. We’re the adults. We’re setting up the experience. We designing it, we’re building it, we’re facilitating the play. I want them to fall in love with doing sport, physical activity.”

“I’m in no way shape or form what people see as a triathlete” 

Kelly Smith founded Black Tri Tribe (BTT) to boost Black and Asian engagement in triathlon. Identifying barriers like aquatic fear and lack of entry-level options, BTT provides accessible pathways from swimming lessons to full triathlons. BTT hosts a triathlon with various distances, including a beginner-friendly option

“When we started, it was evident to me after our first piece of research that there needed to be entry-level participation into the sport – that was the number one thing that was missing.”

You can sign up to the next Black Tri Tribe Triathlon taking place June 7, here.

Read the full story, here.

“Being an instructor you have to go with the flow”

Heidi Tamber, has been an exercise and sport instructor for the last 20 years, working mainly with Active Hastings. She started out on a project called “Girlz Getting Active” and has run classes in street dance, roller skating and cheerleading.

One project got girls into cheerleading and were so successful she ran six sessions a week: “These kids had never done cheerleading before. They were off the streets, uniforms were funded by a housing association, sessions were £1, everything we got for free or paid from the funding we had.”

You can read more of her story here.

“You can do something despite a disability”

Jess Barnes is a football coach and Sussex Project 500 Champion, and she speaks about coaching with a disability.

“I got into coaching through the Sussex disability football league. It’s giving something back as I’ve become not so able-bodied it’s showing people that you can do something despite a disability. 

“I’m lucky with the kids I’ve got they don’t see it as a barrier, to them it’s like well my coach has got sticks, and I think then it makes them look at disability in a different way because they can see I’m doing it so it is achievable.”