FA Coaching Courses

The club will pay for you, within reason, to attend courses that will benefit your development as a coach.

To sign up for any FA course, you will need an FA FAN number - if you don't have one, you can get one here: https://secure.thefa.com/fan/register.aspx

The FA have recently changed how they approach coach education and moved a lot of their introductory courses online.

An overview can be found here: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications

FA Playmaker

This is the starting point for a new coach and is free to complete.

Details: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/the-fa-playmaker

FA Introduction to Coaching Football

This course has replaced the FA's Level 1 course as of 2021 and is a 4 week, online course split into 4 x 1 hour seminars. We recommend all teams have at least one coach associated with them who has completed either this, or the FA's Level 1 before it was discontinued.

Details: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/introduction-to-coaching-football

FA Level 1: Discontinued

This course has now been discontinued (as of 2021) and replaced with the aforementioned FA Introduction to Coaching Football. It's a shame - the "hands on" approach of an in-person course was hugely beneficial. Hopefully the FA will look at reintroducing some of these entry level courses at some stage.

Safeguarding Children / Emergency First Aid

Both of these courses are essential for all our coaches and we've covered why and how to get on them in more detail elsewhere.

First Aid: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/medical-courses

Safeguarding: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/safeguarding-courses

Uefa C (replacing the old FA Level 2)

The FA Level 2 was a fantastic course. I can vouch for that, having attended it myself. This has now been replaced with the UEFA C license, but details are still coming out about that as of March 2022. Will update here when more info is available...

Details: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/uefa-c-licence

The FA Youth Modules (1, 2 and 3) (Discontinued)

These courses have now been discontinued, which is a huge shame as they were simply brilliant (and specifically aimed at coaching young players).

Goalkeeping Courses

The FA offer both Level 1 and Level 2 courses in goalkeeper coaching.

Details: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/coaching-goalkeepers-courses

Uefa B License

The Uefa B license is the next level up from the Uefa C and requires both a significant time commitment and a large monetary investment. If you have completed the Uefa C (or the old Level 2), your course tutor will probably have made a recommendation as to when (or if) they feel you would be ready to embark on this course. As a guide, when I did my Level 2, even the best grassroots coaches finishing the course were told not to even consider the Uefa B license until they had a further 200 hours of coaching at their club under their belt. Last I heard, around 60-70% of people fail the Uefa B license on first attempt. So you really need to be committed to a lot of hard work to embark on this.

The course requires you to have successfully completed various prior qualifications (exactly what will depend on when you did your previous learning) but generally a Level 2 / Uefa C is required for you to start on this course.

The course also requires that you are actively coaching a team (preferably in the 11v11 format) in a league, as it runs over the course of a full season, with the focus on your development of your team.

Details: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/uefa-b-licence

Other Courses

There are plenty of other FA courses available, covering psychology, futsal, club welfare officer roles etc. See this page for more information: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/all-courses

Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

CPD can take the form of a session with our FA mentor, an online session via the licensed coaches club or a CPD workshop organised by the FA. For further information on CPD, see here: https://thebootroom.thefa.com/learning/qualifications/cpd