UK and Ireland-wide agreement over FUNdamentals workshops programme

This week the National Councils (British Mountaineering Council, Mountaineering Council of Scotland and Mountaineering Ireland) and MLT took a quantum leap forward in the develiopment of a coaching qualifications pathway: a formal agreement to work to a shared syllabus for LTPD in UK and Ireland. (LTPD = Long Term Participant Development in case you're wondering, also known as LTAD, the A standing for Athlete - there was much fun at the meeting trying to work out which members of the group were athletes and which were participants. The best known component of the LTPD/LTAD concept is FUNdamentals, coming to a wall near you soon!)

After the meeting Kevin Howett, the Development Officer for MCofS issued the following statement: "We are developing a coaching pathway in Scotland with the support and advice of sportscotland. The first step in this is a FUNdamentals of Climbing course, a syllabus for which we have been developing with their help. At the meeting of the National Source Group led by MLT on the 29th September we were pleased to gain agreement across Britain and Ireland to amalgamate our respective syllabuses, refining the successful workshops already delivered by BMC in England to produce a UK standard course. We hope to start delivering the new course in Scotland in the New Year, and use it to start the training and endorsement of an expanded number of Scottish climbing coaches, who will then help in developing and delivering the follow-on level courses of learning to Train and Elite Training."


In addition to agreeing to merge the draft syllabi, we also agreed on a principle of "team training" throughout the UK, as part of an ongoing move towards harmonisation and external valuation throughout the UK. This helps pave the way for these workshops to eventually be integrated into the coaching qualifications pathway that MLT is developing and implementing over the next two years. This means that canny coaches will be able to keep "a step ahead of the game" by following the LTPD workshops as they are introduced: LTPD is already being piloted under  the working title of "Learning to Train" (though "FUNdamentals II", or "conSOLIDation" may be a more suitable title for this interpretation of this phase for climbers)