Clubs, coaches and duty of care
A coach schedules a session. A club sets a fixture. A camp puts thirty children on a pitch for four hours. None of those are individual choices, and none should be treated as such.
When a club or a coach decides when a session happens, how long it lasts and what is worn, they have made the exposure decision for everybody attending. For adults that is a matter of good practice; for children it sits within the club's duty of care. The mechanisms are shade, session timing, a stated kit expectation communicated in advance, and scheduled breaks.
There is a moment in every junior session where thirty children are standing in a line on an open pitch at one o'clock in July waiting for a turn. Nobody chose that individually. A coach planned the drill, a club booked the pitch, and a fixture secretary set the time. The exposure of every child there was decided by three adults who were thinking about something else.
That is not a criticism, it is a description of how group sport works. But it does mean the responsibility sits with the organisation rather than with the participants, and that the measures which work are organisational ones. Asking thirty nine year olds to manage their own sun exposure is not a plan.
What a club actually controls
| Decision | Who usually makes it | Exposure consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Session and fixture times | Fixture secretary, often months ahead | Whether a group is out at the peak of the day or not |
| Session length | Coach | Which duration band the whole squad sits in |
| Drill design | Coach | How much time is spent standing still in the open versus moving or rotating |
| Shade provision | Committee, as a purchase | Whether waiting and breaks happen in sun or not |
| Kit policy and communication | Club | Whether hats and sleeves are normal or unusual |
| Break structure | Coach | Whether there is a natural moment for water and reapplication |
| Camp and holiday programme design | Club or provider | The largest single block of exposure many children get |
The drill design point, which is the cheapest of all
Coaches design drills for skill outcomes, correctly. But two drills with identical technical value can have very different exposure profiles, because one has players moving through a rotation and the other has twenty five of them standing in a queue in the open for forty minutes. On a hot bright day, choosing the first over the second costs nothing and changes the exposure of the whole group.
The same applies to where a queue forms. A line that waits at the shaded end of a pitch rather than the open end is free and requires no equipment. Coaches who think about this once tend to keep doing it, because it also helps with heat and with attention.
| Surface | Angle to the sun | Exposed for | What removes protection | Control that holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waiting in a queue | Static, in the open, for long stretches | 60-120 | Nothing, and nothing shades it either | Rotation-based drills, and forming queues in shade |
| Active play | Moving, so angles vary | 60-120 | Sweat | Kit expectation set in advance, so hats and sleeves are normal |
| Water breaks | The natural stopping point of the session | 0-30 | The moment to reapply | Scheduled, in shade, with a reminder said out loud |
| Coach on the touchline | Static, all day, every session, all season | 4h+ | Nothing removes it | This is occupational exposure and belongs in the work section |
| Parents and spectators | Static, in the open, for the whole session | 2-4h | Nothing | Shade at the side, which serves everybody at once |
| Camps and holiday programmes | Four to six hours a day for a week | 4h+ | The largest block many children get | Programme design: indoor blocks, shaded sessions, scheduled breaks |
Communicating a kit expectation
The difference between a club where children wear hats and one where they do not is almost always communication rather than enforcement. If the message that goes out before a session says that hats are expected in the same tone as shin pads are expected, most children arrive with one. If it says nothing, most do not.
- State it in the same message as everything else practical, not as a separate health warning.
- Be specific: a hat, a water bottle, and something applied before arriving.
- Say it applies to coaches too, because children copy what adults do far more reliably than what adults say.
- Keep a supply of spares in the kit bag for the ones who forget, because somebody always does and the alternative is nothing.
- Do not turn it into a rule with a consequence. It works better as an expectation, and a rule invites an argument you do not want.
Clubs with both land and water activity sometimes apply one policy across everything, borrowed from the swimming or watersports side.
For land sessions the removal mechanisms are sweat drainage, kit friction and duration, and the controls are shade, scheduling and cover. A policy written around water reapplication does not translate, and children can tell when a rule does not fit what they are doing.
Safeguarding and the general framework
Clubs affiliated to a national governing body generally operate within a safeguarding and welfare framework that expects foreseeable risks in the environment to be considered. Several governing bodies publish hot weather and sun exposure guidance for affiliated clubs. It is worth a club knowing what its own governing body says before a hot weekend rather than during one, because the guidance frequently already exists and simply has not been read.
This site cannot tell you what any particular governing body requires, and it does not give legal advice. What it can say is that the question a club should ask is not whether sun protection is compulsory, but whether the club has thought about a foreseeable feature of the environment it puts children into for four hours.
The coach's own exposure
A coach delivering sessions outdoors for hours a day through a season has an occupational exposure profile, whether or not they are paid and whether or not anybody has ever described it that way. Five hours on a court, on a touchline or beside a pitch is a shift. It happens every day in the summer. The person doing it is usually the last to consider it.
Where a coach is employed, the club is an employer and the framework in the outdoor work article applies directly. Where a coach is a volunteer, the framework applies less formally but the exposure is identical, and a club that looks after its volunteers will treat it the same way: shade at the touchline, a hat as normal kit, and a break that is actually taken.
On a hot day, heat illness is the more urgent risk for a group of children, and it develops faster than anybody expects. Know your governing body's hot weather guidance, know where water and shade are, and know that somebody who becomes confused or seriously unwell needs 999. The NHS publishes general information on heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Nobody at a club should be giving treatment advice.
A short club checklist
- Is there shade where people wait, and if not, what would it cost?
- Can the most exposed sessions move out of the middle of the day?
- Does the pre-session message mention a hat and a water bottle?
- Do drills keep people moving or standing in a queue in the open?
- Is there a scheduled water break with a reminder said out loud?
- Are coaches and volunteers treated as being exposed too?
- Has anybody read the governing body's hot weather guidance this year?
Questions
Is a club responsible for sun protection at a junior session?
A club decides the timing, the length, the drills and the kit expectation, so it has already made the exposure decision for everybody present. For children that sits within the club's general duty of care and welfare responsibilities, and several governing bodies publish guidance for affiliated clubs.
What should a club buy first?
Shade where people are stationary: a covered area beside the pitch or court. It protects participants, coaches, parents and officials at once, works every session for years, and does not depend on anybody remembering anything.
How do you get children to wear hats?
Communicate it in advance in the same tone as any other kit item rather than as a health warning, make sure coaches wear them too, and keep spares in the bag. Enforcement works far less well than expectation.
Are volunteer coaches covered by workplace duties?
The formal position depends on the arrangement and this site does not give legal advice. What is clear is that the exposure is the same whether the coach is paid or not, and a club that looks after its volunteers should be treating it in the same terms as any other outdoor work.
What about holiday camps?
A camp is four to six hours a day for a week, which is the largest single block of outdoor exposure many children get all year, and it is entirely under the provider's control. Programme design matters more than anything else: indoor or shaded blocks at the peak of the day, scheduled breaks, and a clear kit message to parents beforehand.
This article has no commercial links. Nothing in it is sponsored, no product is named and no payment of any kind was received for anything written here. Water Resistant SPF is published by Northbank Media and recommends no products at all. Our funding is set out in full on the about page.
The session brief
One email a month on exposure, heat and sun protection for people who train outdoors and people who work outdoors. No product recommendations, because we do not make any. Each issue carries a single clearly labelled sponsor line that has no influence on anything above it.
We store your address to send the newsletter and nothing else. Unsubscribe in one click. See the privacy notice and the rate card.