How do you prove coaching and teaching work?

Why students' wins do not work on their own

The criteria assess recognition of the petitioner in their field. A student's certificate establishes the student's achievement; for it to say anything about you, there has to be a documented causal link and independent corroboration of your role.

In practice the officer asks three questions in a row. Were you officially this person's coach or supervisor in that period. Is there independent corroboration that the result is connected to your work. Has your contribution been recognized by anyone other than you and your employer.

Lists of wins with none of those three answered is the most common shape of a coach's section, and also the weakest. The data on athletic and educational profiles shows exactly this trap: participation submitted in place of a result, internal certificates in place of external recognition, and the level of the competition not corroborated at all.

Hence the assembly rule: for every student win you claim, attach a document recording your role officially and, where possible, an external source naming that connection - a publication, a federation letter, an official protocol.

Where each kind of evidence goes

Awards. Your own coaching or teaching awards - 'coach of the year', industry prizes, official commendations from a professional body - go straight into the awards criterion. Attach the selection level, the jury and the number of candidates to each: what is assessed is the institution of the award, not the fact of receiving it.

Judging. Sitting on a certification panel, officiating competitions, reviewing other people's programmes and methodologies, assessing colleagues at certification - this is the judging criterion, the most winnable in our set (59%). It is proven not by the invitation but by traces of the work: protocols, signed assessments, official panel rosters.

Original contribution. Your methodology or programme - but only with external adoption. The markers are use by other coaches and organizations, inclusion in a federation's or an institution's programme, references to your methodology in others' work. This is the most-refused criterion in the set (4%), and claiming it without external adoption is not worth it.

Leading role. A head coach, programme director or department head position - provided you prove the organization's own reputation. That second half is mandatory here and often skipped.

Published material about you. Pieces in independent outlets about your work, not about your student's win with you named in one line. The difference matters: material about a topic is read by the officer as material about a topic.

Assembling proof of a methodology

First, fix the methodology as an object: a description, a date of creation, what makes it different from the accepted approach. Without that step there is nothing to prove - you cannot show adoption of something undescribed.

Then external use. Letters from coaches and organizations with no employment relationship to you stating what specifically they apply and since when. Contracts to train under your programme. Inclusion in an official preparation programme. Colleagues' publications citing your approach.

Then scale. How many specialists were trained, how many organizations apply it, over what geography. Numbers work better than adjectives: 'the method is used in 12 schools across four regions' weighs more than 'the method became widespread'.

And separately, recognition beyond your own organization. Invitations to speak on that methodology specifically, inclusion in an industry standard, reviews by specialists in the field, coverage in independent publications. That is what turns internal practice into a contribution to the field.

A general honesty check: remove from the section everything written by you or your employer - what is left? That remainder is what the officer will weigh.