Moderation visit to an MIA training course

Today I accompanied an MIA training course into the Ogwen valley for Day 7 of an MIA training course - these courses are 9 days long, providing an intensive week by anybody's standards! The candidates were bearing up well and all of them stated a preference for a single long installment of this nature rather than dividing the course into seperate weeks.

Three of the teams tackled scrambles on Glyder Fach, so I followed a team part way up Main Gully Ridge and then traversed across to Shark Buttress before taking a downward traverse back to Llyn Bochlwyd and back down to the A5 for an afternoon of paper work.

This weekend has a good forecast: see you at Gogarth?

 

Last week was the National Eisteddfod for Wales down in Ebbw Vale in South Wales. The Eisteddfod is still the largest festival of competitive music and poetry in Europe and lasts for 8 days, and is believed to date back to the 12th Century.

All events and activities are done through the medium of Welsh, so we joined Clwb Mynydda Cymru (an all Welsh mountaineering club), BMC Cymru (Access & Conservation Officer, Elfyn Jones) and the North Wales Outdoor Partnership to jointly run a stall under the banner of Mynydda (Mountaineering).

It was a good opportunity to build links between the different organizations and look closely about ways we can work together. Clwb Mynydda Cymru was successful in gaining more club members and also we discussed running leadership awards through the medium of Welsh in the future.

I had a few days of in the middle of the week and rather than drive home and back, it made sense to visit one of the best sea cliff climbing venues in Europe for some cragging.

Bryn Williams
MLT Wales/Cymru

UK's Mountaineering Associations meet at Glenmore Lodge

Representatives from the Mountain Leader Training Association, British Mountain Guides, Association of Mountaineering Instructors and British Association of International Mountain Leaders met at Glenmore Lodge on 2nd August to explore ways of working in collaboration and to provide Mountain Leader Training with information about the way that its qualifications are used by their members.

It is hoped that in the long term this collaboration may also bring benefits in articulating to the public a more unified message about the scope and remit of the UK's range of qualifications for leaders, instructors and guides of mountaineering activities.

 

THE ASSOCIATIONS COLLABORATION WORKING GROUP

 

 This new group, gathered as a working group of the main MLT (UK) board, and is made up of representatives from the:

 

 British Mountain Guides - Mark Diggins

• British Association of International Mountain Leaders – Issie Inglis
• Association of Mountaineering Instructors - Tony Halliwell
• Mountain Leader Training Association

 Through discussion it became immediately apparent that there are many ways in which this forum could enable all the Associations to work more closely together.

 

The group is chaired by Steve Long, Chief Officer with MLT and, during the first meeting, the following Role and Objectives of the group are being proposed:

Role of the Group

 

To support MLT by providing information which will:

•  enable better understanding of how Award holders are currently using their qualifications,
• how the Awards could interrelate more effectively
• how the Awards might be more easily understood

Objectives

 

To create: 

• Opportunities to share ideas
• Clear and unambiguous information about the awards and assoications to the public
• Mutually beneficial co-operation between Associations

Some Discussion Topics

 

 1.  To develop a full mutual understanding of all the current award processes

           a. Training and assessment

           b. How and where the Awards are used

2.   Professionalism, accountability and standards

3.   Effective ways of presenting the award structure to the public

4.   Ongoing development after gaining a qualification

5.   Collaborative communication and marketing

 

MLT making progress with coaching qualification pathway

Mountain Leader Training was formally tasked by the Mountaineering Councils with developing a coaching system over the next two years to complement the existing leader and instructor schemes. To date a lot of information gathering has taken place and this article summarises the work done so far and also what is
involved in the UK Coaching Certificate.

This spring and summer we held several meetings with staff from sports coach UK including our coach development advisor, Dr. Gillian Mara (The UK Coaching Framework is explained here http://www.sportscoachuk.org/index.php?PageID=2&sc=5&uid=)
This research was contextualised by the annual coaching summit in Cardiff (June 29-30th) and provided sufficient background information to allow a tentative mapping exercise of the Climbing Wall Award syllabus and assessment methodology against the National Standard recommended for Level 1 (assistant coach) and level 2 (coach) in the UKCC framework.

The UKCC is not a qualification but rather a standard. If we develop coaching qualifications that match or exceed the UKCC standard it makes sense to consider seeking endorsement of them as UKCC qualifications. This is because the UKCC is a recognised national standard that can be used by coaches to clearly demonstrate their coaching competencies. Also, those working within the outdoor industry often coach other sports, such as orienteering, mountain biking, paddlesport and sailing. Therefore, if the various awarding bodies follow common standards it can be easier for prior learning to be recognized.
This can allow a coach in one sport to move more easily into another sport, as they will hopefully not have to repeat generic coach training that they already possess. UKCC awards can attract funding, which is an obvious benefit for coaches wishing to become qualified.

A UKCC ‘qualification’ is an endorsement process, whereby a qualification meets set criteria, and is then endorsed. The preliminary mapping process demonstrated how our existing schemes meet many of the risk management criteria, but are lacking in common coaching skills. Regardless of whether or not our coaching qualifications pathway fulfils the UKCC framework, an audit of the existing coaching workforce and employers’ needs is desirable; this is something that Mountain Leader Training has always done before introducing any new awards. The difference here is that participant needs should also be assessed. This will enable us to gauge the level of demand for coaches at various levels, including assistant coach. It will provide a snapshot of where we are now, so provide a benchmark for monitoring the success of future coaching qualifications supporting both participant and coach pathways.

News integrated into main MLT website

Over the next few weeks you will find progressively less news about MLT workshops and developments in this blog, as we are making more use of the live news bar that runs throughout the MLT website. Be sure to visit the MLT website for up to the minute news about developments in Mountain Leader Training.

Moel Famau, WGL Training

This week I joined a Walking Group Leader Training Course in the Clwydian Range of North East Wales.
We had a nice stroll up th track to the summit of Moel Famau and I was able to chat with the Course Director and candidates about the WGL scheme and gaine feedback over its suitability for them. The candidates were from North Wales and thought that the area was a bit limiting for the remit of the WGL, which echoed some comments from providers at the last workshop.

Maybe we should add paved paths, and way marked trails to the remit in the syllabus?

I'm now getting ready for the National Eisteddfod at the end of the month in South Wales, where we will be joining a stand with Clwb Mynydda Cymru and the BMC.

Bryn
MLTW National Development Officer

Coaching summit and reality

Another hectic week, starting with a couple of days in Cardiff at the sportscoach UK annual summit in Cardiff. With representation from many sports as well as representatives from all the home nation sports councils, this was a great opportunity to catch up with the mindset of the policy makers in the new political era. Thanks to Lottery funding, sports coaching is pretty safe financially, but there are potential areas of controversy that we need to be aware of. At MLT our primary aim for a coaching qualification pathway is to create a system that works for our sport/pastime. So if the UKCC model doesn't work for us, so be it. However all my research so far suggests that for at least levels 1 and 2 there is no reason why we shouldn't work within the UKCC model as long as our assessment methodology is acceptable to UKCC. If it looks like it will create mounds of pointless paperwork we'll step sideways but certainly at the moment there is no reason not to stick with it. On Thursday I presented a mapping of the Climbing Wall Award against UKCC Level 1 and level 2 criteria to our designated sportscoach UK rep, Dr. Gillian Mara. Jon Garside and myself were gratified to find that the CWA needs little other than some background understanding on team working and reflective practice/formal evaluation methods to fulfil the criteria for level 1 at least, so I will begin consulting over a proposed syllabus for this over the next few weeks.

I spent a long weekend in the Peak District with my son Sion Idwal and Chris Parkin's family for a coaching induction into gritstone climbing. This was an interesting challenge as we wanted them to sample some mid-grade classics as well as gain some leading experience in preparation for university life in Yorkshire if they get their "A" level grades. I think we pulled it off reasonably well, with various team switches enabling everybody to climb something at an appropriate grade throughout the trip. Routes climbed included Flying Buttress, Flying Buttress Direct, Hollybush Crack, Queersville, Leaning Buttress Direct, Tippler, Dangler, Goliath's Groove, Wall End Flake Crack, Right and Left Unconquerables at Stanage, Embankment Routes 1 and 4, Portland Street, Great North Road, Lyon's Corner House, Knightsbridge and the Mall at Millstone, and Tody's Wall plus Valkyrie at Froggat.