Life Skills curriculum added to CN Future Links

Last year, the Golf in Schools curriculum was revised to include a new Life Skills component that placed focus directly on the core values the sport teaches to youth:

With research support from the University of Ottawa, Golf Canada and the PGA of Canada carefully integrated Life Skills into the lesson plans provided to teachers delivering the program.

The model includes two core Life Skills (focus and sportspersonship) and six associated skills (perseverance, goal setting, emotional regulation, honesty, teamwork, respect). As outlined in the model, a balance is achieved by ensuring that children are exposed to both intrapersonal and interpersonal skills during the lessons.

Fast forward to 2016, where the success of Life Skills has led to a transition into Canada’s leading junior golf program, CN Future Links.

The Learn to Play program—CN Future Links’ feature offering—will begin to distribute brand new manuals highlighting Life Skills to registered instructors at the end of March. All four stages of the program will incorporate Life Skills throughout the lesson plans, providing instructors with suggested methods to convey the importance of each skill.

The added value of the revised manual is best summarized by its opening introduction from PGA of Canada CEO Gary Bernard and Golf Canada CEO Scott Simmons:

This updated program has been developed with the guidance of experienced golf professionals from a variety of backgrounds and they ensured that it met the highest technical standards and that it aligns with the Long-Term Player Development (LTPD 2.0) guide for golf in Canada. This new program takesninto consideration, child development principles, and stages of skill development and articulates benchmarks to be achieved at the appropriate time in the child’s development.

For PGA of Canada instructors looking to further their knowledge of Life Skills, online training sessions will be made available in early May.

Click here to register for CN Future Links.