Sinead Connolly

Overview

Mrs Sinead Connolly is a full time Lecturer in physical education and sports coaching. She joined the School of Sport staff team in January 2008, prior to this Sinead worked as a physical education teacher for eight years and spent three years working as the Northern Ireland Coaching/Education Officer for the (then) Northern Ireland Institute of Coaching and Sport NI. As a Lecturer in the School of Sport the main focus of her work is in the areas of Sports Coaching and Physical Education. She teaches both theoretical and practical modules across both BSc programmes (sport studies and sport & exercise sciences). As the Learning and Teaching Coordinator for the School of Sport; Sinead leads the staff to develop, promote and grow the quality of provision so that the student experience is the very best it can be.

As a British Gymnastics, Coaching Ireland and Sport NI Coach Educator and Assessor Sinead has extensive experience providing coach education courses in both generic and sport specific settings and has made a significant contribution to the workforce development in gymnastics in particular. Sinead has co-authored a number of courses and resources in the areas of safeguarding children in sport, gymnastics and physical education. She worked closely with Gymnastics Ireland in the production of their GymEDGE programme.

In 2006 Sinead established Club GymFUN, a community gymnastics club based at Ulster University. This club has become a focus for the award winning Ulster University GymFUN Coach Education and Employability programme which has produced over 200 gymnastics coaches and has training more than 200 school teachers in gymnastics. In 2015 the Club was awarded the prestigious British Gymnastics Club of the Year NI award and was runner up in the national Club awards. Sinead’s contribution to workforce development was also recognised at these awards when she was runner up in the Coach Educator Category at the British Gymnastics National Awards.