From Drills to Decisions, Transforming Coaching Practice with UPskill

Raise a hand if you’ve been to a coach accreditation or CPD and left with loads of session plans and content… everyone raises a hand. That’s traditional coach education.

Now raise a hand if you’ve seen a coach in your workforce struggle to engage young people, coach through games, or adapt a practice based on what they see (or don’t see)… everyone raises a hand again.

This is exactly why schools and sports organisations are turning to UPskill by The Coaching Lab, a purpose-built workforce education platform that develops not just what to coach, but how to coach.

Shifting the Mindset: From a Library of Drills to a Toolbox of Skills

What coaches (and Directors of Sport) often think they need is a drill bank. It makes life easier for a while until players quickly solve the task and disengage. What they really need is a toolbox of coaching behaviours:

• How to change an activity on the fly
• How to build relationships through connection
• How to challenge, adapt, and reflect in real-time

That’s where UPskill comes in. It's more than just training, it’s ongoing, and tailor-made development for sports staff working in education to deliver engaging player-centred experiences.

With assignable modules, Directors of Sport can match specific development needs to individual staff members; think communication, decision-making, or adapting practices.

Feature Focus: Coaching Through Games

While spending time in Premier League academies and Australian Rules Football environments places where player value is high and standards are higher, one consistent theme stands out: They don’t wait until the end to play games. They start with them.

UPskill helps staff bring that same approach to school settings. Through multi-sport modules and real-world scenarios, staff learn how to:

• Set up small-sided games as "curtain raisers"
• Use player and team challenges to embed tactical learning
• Maximise engagement from the first whistle

Benefit: Coaches see why to coach a certain way, not just what to coach. That builds consistency and creativity across your whole programme.

Connection Over Correction: Building Coach Confidence

UPskill puts connection at the centre of the learning journey with downloadable templates, reflection tasks and peer-feedback prompts. Coaches develop relational coaching tools, not just technical ones.

Using ideas like:

• Asking players open-ended questions like, “What did you see there?”
• Coaching from inside the game, not from the sidelines
• Personalising interactions with fist bumps, player names, and secret challenges

This builds the confidence to coach through the game not over it. UPskill’s content is delivered in the same way we want coaches to coach: adaptable, game-based, and learner-led. All modules are between 15-45 minutes in length, the attention span of learners. 

A Workforce That Coaches the Person, Not Just the Player

Imagine a team of staff who are:

• Confident in asking better questions, not just giving instructions
• Starting every session with games, not ending with them
• Focused on building decision-makers, communicators, and future leaders

That’s what UPskill delivers. Through 12-month school access, progress tracking, and multi-sport learning, it helps schools turn good coaches into great educators. The return? Higher staff impact, lower turnover, and happier players.

Why Schools Are Choosing UPskill:

• Assign learning to staff based on your school’s goals
• Track progress and completion to support CPD plans
• Develop ‘how to coach’ skills in a games-based context
• Create consistency across multi-sport coaching teams
• Embed reflection, player connection, and challenge into daily sessions

The young people we coach today are the coaches of tomorrow. That’s exciting and a little scary. Explore how UPskill by The Coaching Lab can help your school's workforce here.