Mountain Training have recently announced an update to the Indoor Climbing Assistant, Climbing Wall Instructor (& Abseil Module), Rock Climbing Instructor and Climbing Wall / Rock Climbing Development Instructor awards which will come into effect from the 1st January 2025.
For those working toward these assessments, it would be prudent to familiarise yourself with the criteria changes; even qualified Climbing Instructors would benefit from considering these new syllabus aspects. There have been changes to the wording and guidance notes throughout, but the changes focus on leadership and decision making competencies, bringing the climbing awards in line with similar changes to the walking awards made in 2022.
The new sylllabus heading is titled;
Leadership and decision-making
The exact syllabus content varies between the awards, below is how Mountain Training have defined the behaviours and ethos that they believe Climbing Wall Instructor and Rock Climbing Instructors should exhibit below;
The Leader demonstrates adaptable leadership behaviours and decision-making.
Monitor the group, environmental conditions and activity, and can adapt their behaviours and decisions to meet ongoing safety, group and task requirements.
Be consistent and confident in their decision making to achieve positive outcomes and communicate these clearly to the group.
Vision – The leader is a positive role model and aims to inspire others.
Articulate clear and agreed values for their group; lead by example; & behave how they want the group to behave.
Support – The leader creates a positive and supportive environment for the group.
Recognise, respect and adapt to individual needs, differences, strengths and abilities.
Encourage independent learning; establish an environment where mistakes are seen as learning opportunities and provide clear and positive feedback to support this.
Challenge – The leader provides relevant and appropriately challenging experiences.
Agree group goals and calibrate the level of challenge to individual abilities and motivations.
Encourage and support the group and individuals to be part of the decision-making process and encourage them to solve their own problems.
The leader understands the Mountain Training leadership ethos & has developed their own. They should be able to:
Articulate their own leadership ethos and beliefs along with those of Mountain Training.
Acknowledge and describe a range of leadership approaches, models and associated ethos.
These aren’t prescriptive, we’ll all have different styles and approaches when it comes to leadership and that’s fine. The point of these syllabus changes is to better support and develop candidates to be better leaders. Awareness of our own preferences, and considering where it may be more beneficial to adapt to different styles of leadership is something to particularly reflect and work on for us all. To support leaders these behaviours have been summed up in the Mountain Training I.N.S.P.I.R.E leadership model, explained here by Sam McElligot.
Mountain Training specifically state the following “Please be reassured, it is our expectation that well-prepared candidates who have already attended a training course and will be assessed under the new syllabus will be able to fulfil these competencies.” and as such I don’t think this should be a stress for folk who have attended training before 2025. The point of this update is to help support candidates to be the best climbing instructors they can be. These syllabus updates just outline and describe discrete behaviours that form good leadership. Reflecting on these topics can help to better consider and develop your own leadership style and ethos. You can chec out the changes by visiting the respective pages and looking at the latest candidate handbooks in the downloads area.
