GAME CHANGERS

WHAT IS game changers?

Coach for Life | Game Changers is a complete online coaching course with a supporting hard-copy Playbook designed specifically for the reality of coaching school sport in New Zealand.

‍

Three modules covering everything from building connections with your team, developing team culture to managing difficult conversations with parents.

Each module includes video and podcast content, reflection journal prompts, practical templates, and cue cards for when you need quick answers.

‍

The course acknowledges what volunteer coaching actually is: you're learning on the job, you have limited time and you might be coaching a sport that might be new to you.

‍

The course was written by Associate Professor Dr Kirsten Petrie of the University of Waikato, with advice from Dr Will Roberts of the University of Waikato and Amigene Metcalfe of Sport Waikato, with School Kit delivering the programme to schools.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Every young person deserves a coach who sees them, values them, and helps them develop as people, not just as players.

Great coaching changes lives. It builds confidence, resilience, belonging, and joy that extends far beyond the field.

Most school coaches are never trained to coach. A parent puts their hand up because the team needs someone. A Year 13 takes the junior side because they love the game. They’re good people doing real work, mostly on their own, and how they do it decides whether a young person stays in sport long enough for it to teach them something.

A lot of that experience is going the wrong way right now. Kids walk away. Volunteers get judged from the sideline and decide it isn’t worth it. Coach for Life is built to change that, one coach at a time.

“You stepped up when your school needed coaches. Now let us step up to support you.”

Who is it for?

Adult Coaches

You stepped up when no one else would. You're juggling work, family, and now coaching a team of young people who deserve your best. You might feel out of your depth, wondering if you're doing this right. You're not alone.

Student Coaches

You're 16 or 17, coaching players only a few years younger. You remember exactly what it felt like to be them, but that doesn't mean you know how to coach them. You're learning alongside them, and that's okay.

School Administrators

You need quality coaching education that actually works for volunteer coaches who have zero time and varying experience levels.

What’s inside

The course runs across three modules: Belonging, Communication and Delivery.

Nine parts in total, each connected to a page in the Game Changers Playbook where coaches reflect and build their own way of coaching. Covering everything from building team culture to managing difficult conversations with parents.

It provides tools to help solve the challenges a coach has to deal with: the difficult parent, the training that falls apart, the game that gets heated, the player who discloses something serious. Short videos and the Tough Calls podcast bring in coaches who’ve faced the same things. Complete the course inside your own school's private community space alongside other coaches from your school.

Adult and student coaches follow the same themes through different eyes, each in their own private space on a branded app and desktop, customised to your school.

What every coach walks away with

A hard-copy Game Changers Playbook on registration.
A verifiable digital microcredential on completion, for a CV, a LinkedIn profile or a job application.
For students: an enamel Game Changers pin and SVA Service Award hours.
For every school: ‘Thanks Coach’ card packs to give coaches at the end of the season.

What it costs

Free for schools with an Equity Index above 465.
‍
For schools below 465 on the Equity Index, there is a cost of $2500 + gst per year, whatever number of coaches you put through.
‍
Coach for Life doesn’t want cost to limit a schools participation, so will work with a school to help provide funding support should cost be a challenge.
‍
Should you wish to discuss this challenge, please contact Andrew Gaze at andrew.gaze@coachforlife.nz

Next Step

Register your interest and we’ll give you a full sample course at the fictional Kōwhai Ridge High School, so you can check the content is right for your coaches and your students. Tell us you’re in, and we’ll have your customised spaces set up in a flash.