Coaching
Coaching is a vital part of our Club Development work at Bowls Scotland.
Coaches are at the heart of making our sport as fun and accessible as possible; ensuring players learn the necessary skills and techniques, but also continue to develop long into their career.
Bowls Scotland have a variety of support available to coaches and are always looking to help coaches develop and improve.
Coach Education Subsidy Fund
Thanks to additional investment from our key partners sportscotland, we have created a Coach Education Subsidy Fund for our clubs. This will allow individuals or clubs to apply for 50%, 75% or 100% discount on our Bowls Scotland education costs. More details can be found here.
Coach Education
We currently run 4 formal Coach Education Courses at various clubs across Scotland throughout all 12 months of the year. These courses are designed to provide qualifications for coaches and equip them with the skills and confidence to deliver fun, safe coaching sessions within their own club.
More details on each of these 4 courses can be found below:-
Introduction to Bowls Coaching Award
Play your part in introducing new players of any age to the brilliant game of bowls. Coaches will leave with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to deliver fun and safe sessions to new bowlers of any age.
Coaches will gain the knowledge & skills to be able to work with brand new bowlers and younger players. The main focus is on coaches leading fun activities with an aim to create a fun, safe & inclusive environment in your sessions.
84% of recent Intro to Bowls Coaching Award Candidates stated they would be confident in running a Try Bowls event at their club after completing the course.
Structure: 2 Hours Online Learning + 2 Hours Practical training (4 Hours)
Cost: Affiliated Clubs - £40 or Non-Affiliated Clubs - £80
Watch the video below to hear about Florence from Portpatrick BC's experience of the course:
Level 1 Coaching Award
Develop and improve existing players within your club. Coaches will leave with the knowledge, skills and confidence to deliver fun, safe and progressive sessions to develop club players using skills-based practices to produce a more consistent line and length. Coaches will also design and deliver practices to improve the decision-making abilities of players.
Coaches will leave with the confidence & knowledge to deliver fun and safe progressive coaching sessions to wide variety of playing abilities. Using a wide selection of skill based practices coaches will be working to help players progress in their development and in turn produce a more consistent line & length.
Structure: 2 Hours online pre-course learning and 8 Hours on-green training (10 Hours)
Cost: Affiliated Clubs - £80 or Non-Affiliated Clubs – £160
Level 2 Coaching Award
This course allows experienced coaches to develop their coaching abilities across a range of areas. Coaches will examine technical and tactical aspects of team and individual play and will learn how to profile bowlers and develop action plans to help improve their player’s game. The course will explore – profiling, bowler assessments, nutrition, fitness, tactical approaches, planning linked sessions, coaching teams, and coaching through games.
Structure: 2 Full days in-person training, 3 hours online training mid-season and 10 hours coursework at home (25 Hours)
Cost: Affiliated Clubs - £120 or Non-Affiliated clubs - £240
Requirements: Coaches must have achieved Level 1 & be active coaching at a performance level. Sign up for this will be done through application process.
Introduction to Coaching Para Bowls Award
The Introduction to Coaching Para Bowls award is our newest Coaching Qualification and is aimed at allowing coaches to experience and understand navigating adaptations for coaching bowlers with a disability.
The course will provide introduction to Visual Impaired as well as Physically Disabled bowlers. Coaches will get the opportunity to become more familiar with the specific equipment designed to allow disabled bowlers the opportunity to play our great sport.
This course has been designed in partnership with Scottish Disability Sport and will provide coaches with the confidence and knowledge to ensure their club is as inclusive as possible.
Structure: 2 hours online pre-course learning and 3 on-green training (5 Hours)
Cost: Affiliated Clubs - £40 or Non-Affiliated clubs - £80
Regional Coaching Clinics
In 2025 for the first time ever Bowls Scotland are leading 5 Regional Coaching Clinics which will allow coaches to come together to gather knowledge, experience and an opportunity to network with other coaches in the local area.
Based on feedback from 100's of coaches across Scotland, many feel they want more than just coaching qualifications and an opportunity to ask questions, meet like-minded individuals and share their own experiences with others.
Each Regional Clinic will have full detailed information published early in 2025 but sign up now via the Annual Calendar to secure your place!
Cost: £10 per coach (Food included)
To view available courses & to book a place please visit - https://bowlsscotland.azolve.com/ - sign in and then click “Events & Courses”. **Please note – discount for affiliated clubs will only be applied if your online profile has identified which club you are a member of.**
For more information on workshops and courses available, visit our Annual Calendar.
Coach Tutor Roles
Some of our Tutors took part in a Q&A series where we found out more about them and their roles, view these below:
Val Ogilvie | Iain Dorricott | Ian Hepworth
To ensure we can support all areas of Scotland, we are always looking for Coaching Tutors to join our team. This would involve leading Coach Education Courses locally and helping some local clubs progress along their coaching journey. We have a wide range of Coaching Tutors already, but really need some new faces from the most remote parts of Scotland, as well as a lot more female leaders.
For more information on any of the above information, please contact our Coach & Volunteer Manager, Adam Martin, via adammartin@bowlsscotland.com or call 07591 825874.