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About NCI-Atlantic

The National Coaching Institute – Atlantic (NCI-Atlantic) is the educational unit of the Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic (CSCA) and operates in collaboration with the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC).

Coaches are recognized as key pillars of the Canadian sport system, thus their ongoing education and professional development is of paramount concern.  The mission of the NCI-Atlantic is to develop world class, expert coaches for all stages of the sport system, including those working with entry, developmental and high performance athletes in the Atlantic region of Canada.

The NCI-Atlantic offers the Advanced Coaching Diploma, which leads to certification at the competition development – advanced level of the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP).  The program is aimed at coaches who are committed to life-long learning and personal and professional development.  NCI coach-candidates have the opportunity to work with experts in every aspect of sport and to share experiences with other coaches in an internationally recognized competency-based educational system.

The program is intended to be a two-year program, with some flexibility for slightly extended completion schedules.  The NCI admits currently active coaches who wish to pursue professional development without interrupting their coaching careers.

The curriculum is delivered in four terms, beginning at the Atlantic Coaches Seminar (ACS) which takes place every May.  Two face-to-face, long weekend sessions are held annually (one at the ACS and another in the fall).  Three hour web classes are held one evening per week (currently Tuesdays) at 7:00 p.m.  Click here for the list of class topics and weekly schedule.  Sessions are recorded and coaches who are not able to attend a given session can catch up by accessing missed sessions.

It is common knowledge that a major revision of the entire NCCP has been underway for a while and as part of that process, the NCIcurriculum has been revamped to ensure better sport specificity and integration of the sport content into a competency based program which is aimed at advanced coaches of the competition streams – Competition Introduction (Train to Train or Comp-Int); Competition Development (Train to Competeor Comp-Dev) and in some cases, Competition High Performance (*), Train to Win or Comp-HP.

(*) The new Comp-HP program will be delivered by NSOs with the capacity to do so – through a highly individualized process involving a sport specific advisory committee for each HP coach.

The old Level 4/5 program is being replaced by an exciting new curriculum that integrates coaching activities under 4 themes: Coaching Leadership, Coaching Effectiveness, Performance Planning and Training and Competition Readiness.  These are divided into a series of 20 modules which in turn are divided into 3-hour units (Outline of Themes, Modules & Units).  Content and sport experts will facilitate the unit sessions which are designed to encourage coaches to learn through a reflective, problem-solving process involving critical analysis, planning and synthesis of ideas, and most importantly, integration and implementation of their new ideas and knowledge into their daily coaching practices.  Assignments from sessions will be compiled to create a portfolio that reveals evidence of their coaching competencies.

Phasing out the old Level 4/5 tasks will be managed carefully to ensure that coaches in the old system have a fair opportunity to finish their studies in a timely fashion.  Transfer of credit between the old and new program has been mapped.  Note that a task can be completed by taking a group of units in the new program, however, some of the old Level 4/5 tasks will continue to be offered using a variety of delivery methods until the NSOs phase out their sport specific tasks and level 4 program at a future date.  Clearly, it is advisable to complete tasks in the near future before the task is no longer available.  Coaches who are completing, or wish to complete their NCCP Level 4 accreditation should contact the NCI-Atlantic to ensure that outstanding tasks will be available and still accepted for credit.

Admission to the NCI diploma is open to all sports and coaches who meet the requirements.  The targets coaches for the Advanced Coaching Diploma Program must be working with Training to Train and Training to Compete level athletes, and thus the typical coaches tend to be:  Canada Games and provincial head coaches, personal coaches of pre-carded, provincial carded and developmental carded athletes, club coaches of highly ranked clubs and self-made/entrepreneurial coaches, post-secondary coaches (CIS, CCAA), NSO-identified coaches with potential to develop into coaches of high performance athletes, and National Training Centre coaches and assistant coaches.

Please visit the following link for Enrollment Qualifications.

Drop in Times for Athletes

The CSCA High Performance Training Centre has designated drop-in times for registered CSCA athletes:

Mondays – 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Tuesdays: 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Wednesdays:  3:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Thursdays:  3:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Fridays:  8:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m.

Athletes must book an appointment to enter the space outside of these designated times.