SWITCH Courses

Six Week Instructor Training Challenge
· 6 weeks
· BCU 1 & 2 Star - Kayak/Open Canoe
· BCU Level 1 Coach - Kayak/Open Canoe
· MIAS Level 1 or 2 - Mountain Biking
· Rock Climbing skills training
· REC Emergency Care - First Aid
This six week course is aimed to get you to a good level of performance in the core outdoor sports offered at most outdoor centres, these being:-
· Canoeing
· Kayaking
· Climbing
· Biking
Each one of these sports has their own skill set and techniques that need to be understood and performed well before you can think about teaching them. So to this end we will teach you the required knowledge to enable you to gain the National governing body awards that work as stepping stones to getting instructor qualifications. We will also breakdown the coaching tools we use to assist you in learning how to teach.
Kayaking and Open Canoeing :
1 star – Basic skills in any type of paddle sports craft
2 star – The skills required to be a “paddler” and enter into the coaching system, done in both canoe and kayak
FSRT – Foundation safety and rescue Training, these are the skills needed to teach safely   within the level 1 coaching environment
UKCC Level 1 coach in paddle sport - This is the award that will enable you to teach paddle sports on sheltered flat water and to work in outdoor centres
Rock Climbing :
Personal Climbing – Looking at your skills to climb, and to read guide books, choose good routes and the movement and skill to climb them smoothly
Setting up – Looking at the basics of rigging for group climbing sessions, gear choices and anchor choices
Mountain Biking:
Personal Skills –setting up and checking your bike, climbing, descending, cornering, essential navigation skills and emergency repairs
MIAS level 1 allowing you to take groups out on low level terrain
MIAS Level 2 allows you to take groups on more difficult terrain, depending on your previous experience
First Aid : You will participate in a 16 hour Rescue Emergency Care (REC) Emergency First Aid course, which is aimed at those who work in, or regularly spend time in the outdoors, and is recognised by MLTE, BCU and MIAS as valid for the First Aid requirements for instructors under their schemes.

SWITCH Plus
Sixteen Week Instructor Training Challenge

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16 weeks
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BCU 1 & 2 Star
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BCU 3 star in one discipline, training in another
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BCU Level 1 Coach
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MIAS Level 2
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Climbing Wall Coaching
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MLTE Single Pitch Award Training
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REC Emergency Care - First Aid
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BCU White Water Safety
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Extensive Session experience
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Bushcraft Practitioner
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Walking and Navigation
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Risk Assessing
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Writing operating procedures

The 16 week Intensive course is aimed to give you the hard skills, depth of knowledge, centre experience and group practice that is required to work in the outdoor industry as an instructor. During the16 weeks you will get plenty of time to solidify all the knowledge we give you and to gain a massive amount of experience at working in a center and running sessions at all levels.

Throughout the course we will be looking at the skills of each discipline creating a broad base of knowledge for you to draw from. To help gain this, we use a variety of kit and locations so that the information you get is packaged in as many different forms as possible to enable you to see a variety of coaching styles.

Each session will be reviewed to enable you to analyze the learning points and to plan and develop your own coaching and styles. This will take the form of informal discussions, group work, formal classroom sessions and occasionally home work!! We will also be observing other instructor’s sessions to enable you to learn from their experience too.

The balance between hard skills, coaching theory and application, and gaining background experience and knowledge is what makes this course so perfect, as each person on it gets their learning tailored to suit what they need. With the end goal not just about getting lots of bits of paper, but being in a position to get a job in the outdoor industry.



Kayaking and Open Canoeing :

1 Star in both canoe and kayak

2 Star – Generic skills award needed to be a paddle sports coach

3 Star – Assessed in one discipline, training in another

FSRT - The foundation safety and rescue training required for coaching

UKCC BCU Level 1 coach in paddle sports

Prepared for UKCC BCU Level 2 coach in paddle sports

Rock Climbing :

Personal Climbing – looking at getting you happy to climb a variety of styles such as sport, trad, bouldering, climbing walls. By using this variety we will get you climbing at a standard that exceeds that needed to gain your SPA climbing instructors award. We will also be looking at gear choices, placements, rope choices and usage, crag etiquette, guide books, route choice, route finding, rescue skills and far more. We will use the local escarpments a lot of the time, but also travelling to get a variety of rock types in and will visit plenty of indoor walls too.

Setting up – We will teach you a huge variety of ways to rig for bottom and top roping, group and personal abseils, and how to rig when you have led a climb. This will cover the use of placing anchors, anchor choice, equalising, and gear choice, along with usage of rigging ropes.

Instructing – You will be trained to get the MLTB SPA training award which will be run as part of the course. For those with the relevant experience and who have already undertaken the SPA Training course we can help you work towards assessment.

Mountain Biking:

Personal Skills - You will cover essential skills including setting up and checking your bike before a ride, basic safety equipment, climbing, descending and cornering techniques, emergency repairs, and essential navigation skills.

Instructor Training - You will take the Mountain Bike Instructor Award Scheme (MIAS ) assessment. There are two possible outcomes available on this course, Level 1 or Level 2. Level 1 allows you to lead groups of cyclists on low-level terrain rides. Level 2 is for those with a more Mountain Biking experience and allows leaders to take groups into more difficult terrain.

First Aid

First Aid : You will participate in a 16 hour Rescue Emergency Care (REC) Emergency First Aid course, which is aimed at those who work in, or regularly spend time in the outdoors, and is recognised by MLTE, BCU and MIAS as valid for the First Aid requirements for instructors under their schemes.

Bushcraft

You will learn the basic knowledge to enable you to assist on weekend Bushcraft courses, including Fire lighting, friction fire lighting, cordage, tarps, cooking, pot hangers, water filtration, group control and lesson planning, site choice and requirements

Walking and Navigation

All outdoor instructors need to be able to navigate, and we use hill and mountain walking as the tool to teach this, as there is no other better way. You will take part in day hikes, learning to navigate a group across wild terrain.

Risk Assessments and operating procedures

This is something that as an instructor you need to be able to do, because the ability to use dynamic risk assessments to keep groups safe in the outdoors is paramount to pretty much anything else we do. These link with the operating procedures, so that we know what broad outlines we should be delivering on a course. By the end of the course you will be able to write both of these for all of the disciplines that we cover on this course.