Sports tutoring

The central idea in sports tutoring is to get students to inspire and support their peers in sports. In the ideal situation the sports tutoring is part of the student tutors’ daily lives as members of the academic community. The aim of the sports tutoring is to promote wellbeing and a sense of community on campus.

Sports tutoring in a nutshell

The purpose of the sports tutors is to offer other students peer support in starting or continuing an active hobby. Many students move to a new town when they start university. Their daily lives and routines, including any exercise routines, can also change considerably.

The sports tutors are peers who encourage and motivate other students to discover the joy of physical activity alongside their studies.

Do you want to know more about what sports tutoring entails? Read on!

Why do sports tutoring?

Being physically active together increases wellbeing and joy of life, creates a sense of community, and supports learning. Peers are the best people to encourage students to exercise, and an excellent helping hand for the sports services.

Who are the tutors?

Any student can be a sports tutor. The most important attributes are an enthusiasm for physical activity, new people, and combining the two!

What does tutoring entail?

Trying out new sports, tournaments, led/supervised exercise slots, being an exercise buddy, introducing students to sports services, and different kinds of events.

Where does the sports tutoring take place?

At the university’s/the municipality’s/private/club sports premises, on jogging trails, on sports grounds, in forests, on ski tracks, by the water etc.

Who organises the tutoring?

The organiser varies from university to university. The tutoring can be organised by the university’s sports services, the student union, or both. Student sports clubs have also been known to organise sports tutoring.

What does organising the tutoring entail?

Training tutors, team building for tutors, planning the activities, staying in touch, giving out prizes, assessment, and development.

What does the sports tutoring year look like?

In a typical year, the new tutors are trained at the start of each new academic year or term. The term for sports tutoring is one year.

Can the sports tutoring be adapted?

Of course! Sports tutoring has been adapted in different ways: Kajaani University of Applied Sciences has wellbeing tutors, and in Mikkeli there are hobby tutors who organise hobby groups to guide students towards different kinds of hobbies.

We support our members in sports tutoring

We want to help and support our members in launching and maintaining sports tutoring. We particularly help our members in the following ways:

Handbooks

We offer our members two handbooks in English to help them launch an improve their sports tutoring:

  • OLL's handbook for sports tutors
  • OLL's handbook for arranging sports tutoring

You can find the handbooks on the Federation’s Higher Education on the Move databank. The login page is currently available only in Finnish.

Training

Learn more about the training offered by the Federation on the Sports tutor training page.

A white badge which reads “liikuntatuutori / sports tutor” in green writing. The badge shows two figures exercising together.

Sports tutor overall badge

Overall badges

We hand out badges to the sports tutoring organisers.

The badges are meant as a small reward to thank the sports tutors for their important work. You can order badges from us by writing to oll@oll.fi.