Climbing is one of the UK’s fasted growing sports with more people than ever before taking part and becoming involved in coaching, instructing or supervising climbing.
If you would like to train to be a climbing instructor and gain a nationally recognised qualification, we can help. We regularly run courses for those who wish to teach climbing on indoor walls – The Climbing Wall Instructor and a higher level course for those who wish to teach climbing outdoors called – The Rock Climbing Instructor.
For those who would like to help Climbing Wall Instructors and Climbing Wall Award holders when they are working with groups, we also offer a one-day course called – The Climbing Wall Assistant.
The above courses are centrally administered by Mountain Training England (MTE) and if you wish to find out more you can download a syllabus for either scheme from www.mountain-training.org
THERE ARE FOUR STAGES TO BECOMING AN INSTRUCTOR UNDER EITHER SCHEME:-
Step 1 – Registration: register with online MTE and purchase a personal logbook. To do this you must be 18 years old (17 for The Climbing Wall Instructor) and a member of the British Mountaineering Council (BMC). Registration currently costs £47 and can be done online.
Step 2 – Training: Training courses are run at Newcastle Climbing Centre. The Climbing Wall Instructor involves 12 hours of contact time and The Rock Climbing Instructor 20 hours. The Climbing Wall Instructor course is delivered indoors at climbing walls. The Rock Climbing Instructor is based at local outcrops and involves a visit to a climbing wall and some lectures indoors.
Step 3 – Consolidation: At the end of your training course you will agree a personal action plan with your training Provider. This usually covers a period of at least three months during which time you will record your climbing and supervising experience in your logbook.
Step 4 – Assessment: The assessment lasts for a minimum of 6 hours and includes personal climbing, groups supervision and the use of climbing walls. After passing the assessment you should keep your logbook up to date.
If you would like to know more about The Climbing Wall Instructor or The Rock Climbing Instructor schemes, please speak to staff at the centre or contact us using the form on this page.