Table Tennis England launches Coach Mentor role to strengthen development pathway

Table Tennis England’s new Coach Mentor role is a clear signal that the sport wants coaching to feel less like a one-off qualification and more like a living pathway. Announced on 22 April 2026, the role is built to support coaches across community, club, talent and performance settings, with mentors helping them reflect on practice, sharpen skills and line up delivery with the Player Development Framework.

That matters at ground level because the old Levels 1-4 ladder is being replaced by a three-step structure: Coaching Assistant, Coach and Head Coach. The new system is meant to do more than certify people and move on. Table Tennis England says the Coach Mentor and Assessor layer is there to keep coaches growing, which is where plenty of club systems break down in practice. Coaches often get the badge, then get left alone. The new model is trying to change that by making support continuous, practical and relationship-driven.

The mentor role itself is set up to be self-employed and flexible, aimed at people committed to positive, inclusive and high-quality coaching environments. A UK Sport listing for Coach Mentor x8 advertised pay of up to £35 per hour, dependent on experience, and described a fixed-term, part-time post with remote working and local and regional travel. Table Tennis England says mentors will be recruited through a formal selection process and supported with training, CPD and review, with the role reporting into the Coach Learning & Development Manager.

The organisation has already been laying the groundwork. Its first Coaching Assistant intake launched in February 2026, the first Coach qualification delivery was planned for spring 2026, and Head Coach registration is due to open in autumn 2026. Evie Collier has said the new pathway is designed to reflect how coaches actually work across the country, which is the right test here: not whether the framework looks tidy on paper, but whether it helps a coach at a Tuesday club night run better drills, manage a mixed ability group and keep volunteers coming back.

Table Tennis England has also been using events to turn that idea into something practical. Its first full Coaching Conference took place on 21 March 2026 at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham, running from 9am to 5pm and costing £55, with access to the Friday and Saturday of the Mark Bates Ltd Senior National Championships. The theme, Developing Coaches. Empowering Players. Building the Future, matched the format: coaches watched live matches, then discussed what they saw, linking elite play back to everyday coaching decisions.

The bigger backdrop is hard to miss. The ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals London 2026 runs from 28 April to 10 May 2026, 100 years after the first World Championships in England in 1926, with 19 of the top 20 men and most of the top 20 women set to compete. If Table Tennis England’s mentor model works, the real proof will be simpler: stronger retention, more confident coaches, sharper sessions and players who progress because the people guiding them are finally being guided too.