part time outdoor instructor course????

grahamjude16

I'm lucky enough to be working full time but really want to do a course in outdoor instructing. All the course I could find are full time so wont work. I'm also based in Dublin but will travel.
Does anyone know of such a course?

pmccormack

Not sure that there is any part time course in Ireland I could be wrong.
You could just do the instructor-ships that you are interested in individually, this will be a very hard and long process depending on your previous experience.

I know the students on the instructor courses spend around 4 days a week on session for 6-8 months and then around 2 months work experience before doing assessments.
Are you into any out door sports already the main ones most courses do are Kayaking, Climbing, Hillwalking, then depending on where you go their are additional ones such as sailing, open canoeing etc.

grahamjude16

Thanks for that pmccormack.

I'm into the main outdoor sports and work with teenagers at the moment and try to get them involved and interested but wouldn't be near the level of taking an assessment unfortunately.
Any advice appreciated though

pmccormack

If your into kayaking do your Level 3 skills and then do the Level 2 instructor award this is relatively straight forward if you put in the effort if you are a kayaker this could take you a year to complete training courses are run regularly and so are assessments.

Climbing go for your SPA (single pitch award) again from people I work with who have done it this can be relatively straight forward if your into climbing and do it regularly.

For the mountains if you are used to hill walking using maps compass and navigation then do Your ML training other wise you could do your Mountain skills award which will teach you all these skills.


There are loads of other bits and pieces you could do but it all depends on your funds some thing like the ML training alone could cost you around €600 or more for everything (training, food, accommodation, transport etc).

The kayaking just on training and assessments doing your L3 Skills and L2 Instructor could cost roughly €500 not including transport, accom, logging hours and all that.

Id pick what you like and run with that first. then once your out and active you make connections and you may find different routes for getting qualifications.

grahamjude16

Thanks a lot for all the advice, at least I've a bit more of a direction now

NathanKingerlee

Initially starting out on the road to qualifications, part-time, I'd suggest going down the hill walking road. Probably easiest and most cost effective of all the sports.

Technically Mountain Skills is a personal proficiency award, just for you, but in practice even MS can get you into easy guiding work, along with a first aid qualification - such as Remote Emergency Care Level 2 or 3.

Mountain Skills is three weekends, along with some of your own training/logging. You can follow this on with Walking Group Leader (for low level hiking) or Mountain Leader (for mountain hiking).

You'll find plenty of MS courses in the country and I'd reccomend these guys near Dublin for the leadership training: www.mountaintraining.ie.

Sea Kayak Instructor Level 2 is the kayak/canoe instructorship I'd reccomend as being the most straight-forward to achieve, as opposed to river kayaking or open canoeing.

Grudaire

NathanKingerlee wrote: »

Sea Kayak Instructor Level 2 is the kayak/canoe instructorship I'd reccomend as being the most straight-forward to achieve, as opposed to river kayaking or open canoeing.

Level 2 is a common instructorship for river and sea as it basically only covers flat water

You still need to log 25hours assisting instructing - make sure you have somewhere to do this before hopping on an instructor course. You need Level 3 proficiency as well to become an instructor.

If you're to go the individual course route then I'd advise to start with the sports you are better at/enjoy most. It is a bit of a slog. Which sports would you do most often/have most access to?

noodlesdundalk

What I would say is that if you were looking for work I would recommend getting at least one water activity and one land activity.

My opinion is the best to start off with would be a kayak instructor award and the single pitch award (rockclimbing).

But what you will have to do before doing either of these courses would be an appropriate first aid course, something like REC 3 is a great start.

Once you have Rec 3 you can get work doing whatever team based activities and in house trained activities there are around.

PM if you would like any help or advice.