The Coach Core Awards celebrating 2022 took place on February 8th at The Oval in London. This new date gives us a moment to reflect on the previous calendar year, and places the ceremony in the heart of National Apprenticeships Week, which only feels right! The ceremony was opened by a speech from England Blind Footballer and entrepreneur Azeem Amir – a member of the Coach Core Youth Board.

The Awards brought together apprentices, graduated apprentices, their employers and learning coaches, as well as supporters and other partners, to celebrate and highlight everything that makes Coach Core special.

All the judges stressed how hard it had been to rank the finalists and noted that each would have been a worthy winner in their own right.

We’re delighted to announce that our very own Wasim Collins won Learning Coach of the Year with Hat-Trick bringing home the Employer of the Year award!

Wasim Collins

Due to the type of young people Coach Core bring on, we know a ‘traditional’ education environment isn’t usually effective. Waz creates sessions that are engaging, enjoyable and allow Coach Core apprentices to learn in a way which is best for them. A survey of his apprentices had a consistent, positive theme: their joy in the education days with their Learning Coach.

Waz combines this with a willingness to support individual apprentices however they need it, with several of them highlighting his selflessness to us. He stays late, is accessible at all times and sources specific CPD. He has helped one apprentice who struggled with their literacy, another move employer when their travel became impractical and yet another with their homelessness. Further, he promotes apprenticeships and the Coach Core programme at every opportunity, travelling to attend careers fairs and conferences.

Hat-Trick

Hat-Trick are deep believers in developing a pipeline of success in their local area: young participants become volunteers who become apprentices who become full-time members of staff. Hat-Trick have taken on 5 Coach Core apprentices, 2 of whom are now members of staff, 2 of whom are on the programme currently and 1 of whom left the programme to take up full-time work in the school Hat-Trick had her working in.

They are committed to supporting their apprentices holistically, not just professionally, including helping one who was homeless and sofa-surfing when the programme began, and is now in a permanent place of residence and receiving support from a counselling service.

Hat-Trick want to set their apprentices up for the long-term and so their apprentices are trained on developing and running programmes from start to finish, including bid-writing, planning, and evaluation, as well as face-to-face delivery. This, combined with training courses (like Knife Crime Awareness courses, FA Level 1, Youth Work) and opportunities (like leading on a Commonwealth Games summer camp) means their apprentices are likely to develop positive sustainable careers at Hat-Trick or beyond.

Congratulations to all winners and nominees, the work you do is outstanding and it’s an amazing achievement to be recognised.

You can read more about the other winners here.