British Orienteering are currently re-structuring their coaching qualifications. Some details remain to be decided, but the key points are summarised here. This document will be updated as more information becomes available.
In due course all levels of British Orienteering coach qualification will be UK Coaching Certificate (UKCC) endorsed qualifications. This means they will be taught to certain standards, the qualification will be recognised throughout the UK, and orienteering coach qualifications will be comparable with those for other sports.
The new scheme will have 4 levels (instead of the current 5). Each level will relate more to the coach’s level of expertise and the range of tasks the coach is expected/qualified to perform, rather than a direct relation to the technical difficulty or age range of people being coached.
Each Level has to be “endorsed” through sports coach UK; this approval is expected for the new Level 1 course by April 2008, and Levels 2 and 3 will be submitted within the next year.
The new UKCC Level 1 qualification equates fairly closely to the previous British Orienteering Level 2. A UKCC Level 1 qualified coach may carry out his/her coaching on areas classified as Type A and B (though this is also under review), and may teach steps A to H on the step system.
The new Level 1 course comprises 2 days of tuition and practice, plus 1 day of assessment. That third day can immediately follow the tuition and practice, or it can be a week or two later. There is a small amount of home study, which could be done in one evening. It should all be a fairly short process.
The assessment for UKCC Level 1 has to involve an independent assessor (ie. someone not involved in the tuition) as well as the tutor.
For tuition, the maximum tutor:candidate ratio is 1:10. For assessment, the maximum is 1:5 (tutor and assessor work together).
Work is in hand on the precise mapping of current coaching qualifications to UKCC qualifications.
The current British Orienteering Level 1 training will continue to be available, with or without assessment, until the new UKCC Level 1 qualification is fully implemented.
As a second strand to coach education, British Orienteering are introducing two Teaching Orienteering courses. These are aimed at teachers, outdoor centre staff and others involved in the introduction of orienteering to newcomers, and do not involve assessment.
Part 1 (one day) is the introductory level. Part 2, again one day, builds on the work of Part 1 and is aimed at skills development, taking pupils up to GCSE equivalent level. (Candidates must attend Part 1 before doing Part 2.)
Work is in hand to link these courses specifically with the Scottish curriculum, and is expected to be complete by April/May 2008.
All UKCC endorsed coaching awards must be tutored and assessed by coaches who are qualified as tutor/assessors. Existing tutor/assessors have been contacted about this.
Tutors are also required to attend an update session before they teach the Teaching Orienteering courses.
Two pilot courses for the Level 1 UKCC qualification are being run over the next few months, one of them in Scotland. The hope is that the finalised Level 1 UKCC courses will be implemented by September 2008.
The Young Leader Award will continue to be available.
The Licensing of British Orienteering coaches will continue in the same manner as now with the 4 key elements
Posted by on 06th Feb 08 Filed under: Coaching/Training • Handbook • News