SOUK MEMBERS
January 2005 - SkillsActive supports Officials
SkillsActive, the Sector Skills Council for Active Leisure and Learning, is working with National Governing Bodies of sport across the UK to develop a suite of National Occupational Standards for Officiating, aimed at raising the profile and support the training and development of officials across all sports.
Officiating is now recognised as an essential component to the development of sport. Unfortunately, as the pressures in sport grow (mainly due to the intense media spotlight), the number of instances of abuse toward match officials has grown, this causes problems for recruitment and retention of appropriate staff.
‘Sport cannot flourish at grass roots level without officials’.
The role of officials is crucial not only in ensuring fair play, but also in managing the health and safety considerations which often come into play in many sports where physical contact, and/or potentially dangerous equipment is involved. It is important to remember that without a qualified official, matches and competitions cannot take place.
There has been massive support for the first phase of this project from a large number of NGBs and many sports believe the role of officials, from darts to gymnastics, rugby union to badminton, motor sports to basketball, needs promoting. The results of phase one are available at: www.skillsactive.com/bysector/sportsandrecreation/news.htm
The Rugby Football Union and the Football Association, in partnership with 1ST4sport qualifications, have already had their qualifications recognised by the Qualifications Curriculum Authority (QCA) and are now accessing public funding from the Learning and Skills Council. The development of a full suite of National Occupational Standards (NOS) would allow more sports to follow the lead of football and rugby union. For those sports who do not want to develop qualifications, they can use the NOS to design training programmes, develop job descriptions and provide pathways into officiating as a viable career option.
The potential use of officiating NOS in the future is wide ranging and will support projects such as the referee scholarship at Gloucestershire University, aligning and standardising qualifications across the sports, and integrating officiating into the school curriculum.
On the 11, February 2005 representatives from all NGBs are invited to a working group meeting at SkillsActive’s head office to provide technical input from individual sports, suggest channels for communication and move the project forward.
For more information about the officiating project please email or call him on 020 7632 2012
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