Welcome, it is great that you are interested in the new coaching qualifications and this is the starting point of your journey. In early 2020 British Skydiving created a working group to develop a new structure of Coach qualifications. The first qualification to be launch is – The Foundation Skills Coach. This qualification will initially be in Formation Skydiving, Freefly, Wingsuiting, Tracking and Canopy Formation. Other disciplines will be added after the trial period.
There is a large amount of new terminology being introduced. One of the key elements for these qualifications is for them to be recognised outside our sport, therefore it is important we adopt terminology common across all sports. This will be a big change and will be challenging during the transition, but full support will be available.
While there are some skilled coaches in British Skydiving, the inhouse rating means the quality and qualification process can be inconsistent. Currently, we only have a single level of coach rating. It has become clear that in order to recognise the range of highly skilled coaches multiple levels of coach ratings are required. This would also help members to understand the depth of knowledge an individual coach has, and also allow the highly experienced coaches to differentiate themselves.
We have developed a new qualification – Foundation Coach, which is accredited by Ofqual, and externally quality assured by 1st4Sport. This will raise the standard of the coaching skills and knowledge available, create a journey for coaches to develop their knowledge and skills by working their way through the levels. The core aim is to create better coaches, with better quality coaching, giving you the members better skills, which ultimately means more fun.
As an instructor, your CI will need you to be capable of much more than just teaching in a classroom. You may sometimes find yourself in tricky situations, by virtue of your rating making you the voice of authority / experience. For example, if an experienced jumper picks up a potential problem on a flightline check but isn’t sure, you may be the only person available to make a spot decision. It’s your call – ground someone unnecessarily and they’ll resent the lost jump ticket, but let someone go when they shouldn’t and the ensuing accident will be on your conscience. So the BI course also includes lectures on other subjects relevant to instructors such as rigging, first-aid, incident procedures, flying for parachuting, instructor responsibilities and drop zone management.
