Sports Coaching and Performance (West Ham United Foundation) BSc (Hons)

Gain essential skills to boost your career prospects, particularly for roles connected to health and wellbeing fields. You’ll engage with digital platforms, industry-led workshops, and real-world tasks to build confidence in communication, research, and digital professionalism. Throughout, you’ll map your career aspirations, develop a strong online presence, and learn to identify the skills employers seek. With support from academic staff and career coaches, you’ll reflect on your personal strengths and plan meaningful steps toward your goals. Interactive group projects and peer feedback will help you sharpen your abilities and showcase your readiness for the professional world.

Prepare for success in higher education by developing the academic, personal, and professional skills needed for your studies and beyond. You’ll learn effective time management, research strategies, digital proficiency, and academic writing techniques, with a strong focus on reflective learning and goal setting. Through interactive workshops, group discussions, and guided independent study, you’ll gain confidence in using university systems, working collaboratively, and responding to feedback. This module also introduces ethical study practices and the responsible use of AI tools. By building strong study habits early, you’ll be well-placed to meet the expectations of higher-level academic work.

Practical maths skills are essential across health and education careers. You’ll explore statistics, probability, and basic financial numeracy, learning how to apply them to real workplace scenarios. Workshops, tutorials, and digital practice sessions will build your ability to analyse data accurately and confidently. Special emphasis is placed on using tools like spreadsheets and calculators within healthcare and education settings. As you sharpen your mathematical reasoning, you’ll prepare for success both at university and in professional environments.

Essential communication skills underpin success at university and beyond. This module focuses on developing your oral, written, and interpersonal abilities, preparing you to adapt your communication style to different academic and professional contexts. You’ll explore contemporary issues in media and communication, build your active listening skills, and learn how to structure persuasive arguments. Group work and interactive workshops provide a supportive environment to practise and refine your skills, helping you become an effective and confident communicator.

Applied knowledge matters in the sports and exercise sciences. This module offers you the chance to lead and manage a practical year-long project, reflecting the realities of sport PE, sport science, or sport therapy pathways. You’ll enhance your leadership, teamwork, research, and presentation skills through hands-on engagement, with continuous feedback supporting your development. By focusing on live projects and real sporting contexts, you’ll build a strong base for your future studies and professional roles.

This module will introduce you to the fundamental academic and principal components underpinning sports coaching. A further aim of the module is to consider broader issues (e.g., health and safety, risk management, equality, inclusion) affecting the coach while operating in his/her sporting environment. The module will provide you with the opportunity to develop theoretical understanding of coaching in both a classroom and practical setting. At the end of this module you will be able to deliver a well-managed coaching session as part of a group, inclusive of all fundamental coaching principles.

This module will introduce you to the fundamental practical components underpinning effective sports coaching. A further aim of the module is to consider broader issues (e.g., health and safety, risk management, equality, inclusion) affecting the coach while operating in a professional environment and manner. The module will provide you with the opportunity to develop your practical coaching skills, preparing you to become a successful sports coach.

You will be able to develop the academic, interpersonal and communication skills necessary for effective learning and employment in the sport, exercise and physical activity industries. In addition, you will be introduced to professional, ethical and reflective practice skills specific to their discipline. You will then be able to recognise the importance of research and academic skills for university and working life.

This module will introduce you to the body systems and the basis of human performance. The module will also examine the physiological levels of organisation in the human body and their function in facilitating physical activity.

This module will provide you with a greater insight and understanding of talent identification strategies and player development programmes in Academy/Elite environments. The module will focus on theoretical models in both talent identification and development (Istvan Bayli Model) whilst embedding this theoretical knowledge in real-life sporting examples. This module will also allow students to explore the different talent types and predictors that play a part in the talent identification process, as well as the psychological and physical barriers that impact sport participants at a youth development stage.

This module will introduce you to psychological aspects of sport. This will involve focusing on a range of psychological theoretical frameworks and their application to the sport domains.

This module will support you to develop skills that enable you to conceptualise, plan, analyse and interpret experiments that answer real-world problems. The focus will be on research methods as applied to professional practice through the monitoring of change that occurs in outcomes specific to your chosen career path. The module will also continue to develop your level of critical thinking through the interpretation and synthesis of secondary data.

This module aims to further develop your understanding of National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and the standards they set for performance sports coaches in the UK. The module will identify and debate the role of many organisations such as Sport Coaching UK, UK Sport, Sport England, The Football Association, The England and Wales Cricket Board, The Rugby Football League and more.

The purpose of this module is to enable you to apply and adapt scientific, coaching and sporting knowledge for the use and application of performance analysis techniques to a range of activities. This module develops the theoretical underpinnings of effective performance analysis and enables you to develop your performance analysis skills in practice. You will study key aspects of the performance analysis process related to knowledge of tactics, strategies and systems of play within individual and team sports.

This module will introduce you to the sports scientific knowledge required to plan and implement short-, medium- and long-term training programmes. The module will also promote awareness of the diverse application of training programmes.

The module aims to provide you with the opportunity to develop your theoretical knowledge in sports practice and practical coaching settings. Applying Specialist Performance will introduce the practical application of theory in sports coaching, performance analysis or training programmes.

To develop an understanding and knowledge of managing an athlete in performance sport. This module will expose you to the multifaceted area of an academy manager and athlete development professional. The module will cover areas of athlete management such as outlined below.

This module will further develop and enhance the knowledge and understanding of level 6 students with an interest in Performance Analysis. Developing on the level 5 Performance Analysis module, Advanced Performance Analysis will expose you to advanced platforms used within performance sport. The purpose of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to apply the principles of performance analysis to specific activities in a practical sports coaching setting. You will be able to observe, analyse and critically evaluate performance in relation to the performance analysis literature, and give meaningful feedback to assist coaching in future planning.

The module aims to allow level 6 students to explore their specialist area in performance sport, where they can critically observe and analyse other sports coaches whilst helping them to co-design, plan, deliver, monitor and evaluate coaching programmes. The module will also help you to develop your own independent skillset and understanding of performance sports programmes and syllabi’ used in elite environments. The module will enhance your professional and industry-based skills in sports coaching, performance analysis or strength and conditioning, depending on which you choose to specialise in, whilst also helping you to develop positive feedback strategies when working with athletes, which will help you in your career as a sports coach.

You will be introduced to fundamentals of fitness testing, periodisation, training load and injury prevention which are the key components of the strength and conditioning programme. Also, you will be exposed to core lifting exercises.

This module will culminate your prior knowledge, asking you to apply theoretical understanding in a work-based learning environment. The applied skills and knowledge gained in previous industry-focused modules at levels 4 and 5 will be brought to life, tested and put into practice in community/performance sports environments. Before beginning the placement, you will identify a specific area of performance sport you would like to specialise in and work within for a minimum of 100 hours. This specialism-based module will allow you to focus, hone your skills and continue to develop, propelling you towards employment as a sports coach once you graduate.

This module provides students with the opportunity to complete a substantial research project in an area of their choosing. This module challenges students to critically analyse bodies of research and use this information to construct a suitable hypothesis or research question that can subsequently be explored. The module requires that students exercise initiative and personal responsibility through the management of their project.

Students are required to focus their work on responding to a real-world problem that can be scrutinised resulting in solution-focussed strategies being proposed for intervention. The module offers the chance to work with secondary data, complete a systematic review, or use evidence to identify a work-based challenge providing suitable recommendations for resolution.

• To introduce the entrepreneurial mindset, and to equip you with the necessary skills and knowledge vital for generating commercial or social value in sports' knowledge-based economy.
• To enable you to commodify your undergraduate skillset to identify opportunities within your profession and create a business plan to capitalise on your ideas.
• Students will choose between our Applied Research Project in Sport 20-credit module plus our Entrepreneurship and Enterprise in Sport 20-credit module or the Independent Research Project 40-credit module.

The aim of this module is to encourage you to work independently and under supervision with an academic member of staff to produce a project that demonstrates your ability to research and/or explore an applied topic in sport and exercise science/therapy. You will communicate your findings to a range of audiences such as coaches, clinicians, physical educators and sports scientists.

You will choose between our Applied Research Project in Sport 20-credit module plus our Entrepreneurship and Enterprise in Sport 20-credit module or the Independent Research Project 40-credit module.