Teachers, teaching assistants and other learning support staff often contribute to the development of young people outside the classroom. Where this takes place in climbing walls or in the countryside, for PE, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or any other outdoor education programme, each local authority, academy trust or school board will have its own operating procedures and requirements.
These procedures and requirements are about the organisation’s duty of care to their pupils and their need to establish the competency of individuals to deliver walking and climbing activity.
Nationally recognised qualifications, such as those administered by Mountain Training, are commonly used as a measure of competence and some organisations will financially support their staff to gain our qualifications, for example by paying for their registration fee.
How does it work?
Our courses are vocational schemes including independent practical input that should be logged before and after the training course in the lead up to the assessment course.
- Familiarise yourself with the qualification syllabus by reading the candidate handbook.
- Regardless of who’s paying for the registration fee, you (the individual teacher/assistant) need to create an account on our candidate management system (CMS/tahdah) and add your delivery address. This is free of charge.
- If you are paying the registration fee, select the Register option from the top menu, then select the relevant qualification from the list and pay the registration fee. If the school or another organisation is paying for your registration fee, see: How do I register my staff/volunteers?
- You may need to join a mountaineering council before you can register. If so, this can be done as part of the registration (if you’re doing it yourself).
- Once you’re registered, you’ll get access to DLOG, our digital logbook for recording your walking or climbing experience – this needs to be filled in with at least the minimum experience prior to booking a training course. Your experience will be reviewed by the course provider.
- If you are booking a course directly you can use our Find a course tool. If your organisation is booking you on the course, they can liaise with the provider, or use our Find a provider tool.
- Attend the training course and receive feedback on how to prepare for assessment.
- Spend some time consolidating your learning in line with the qualification syllabus and any assessment prerequisites, likely including a first aid certificate. Check the candidate handbook or the website for details.
- Attend an assessment when you think you are ready. At the end of the assessment you will receive a Pass, Defer of Fail result depending on how well you met the assessment criteria (the syllabus competencies).
