Having done BEL I struggle to see what LLA brings to the party. It’s a ‘summer’ only and in the title lowland (like BEL) with similar requirements like being close to refuge’, but LLA doesn’t as part of it’s primary syllabus include camping, this is an add on, so only a qualification to say you can take people on walk. Which for us is almost useless. We need something that covers all the bases in one go. I did notice it requires registering with Mountain Training which is money up in smoke. I know a lot of the hard nosed AT mob didn’t like BEL, which gave it a certain appeal.
@redowling leave sport alone as a rugby man, it’s almost being reduced to non-contact in the ATC as it is from what I was reading.
I have made that point repeatedly to everyone from my Wong Commander to Region H&S, ATF and the RFCA surveyor.
Agreed that the quality is poor, but will we address that by carrying out hand me down training with no real CPD? CI Bloggs teaches Cadet Jones who grows up to be Plt Off Jones and teaches Cdt Smith and so on, you end up with years and years of training with no one actually doing it to the National Standard.
Except the RAFAC syllabus is a load of rubbish, buts if it are good, others are pitched at the wrong level and some of it is totally irrelevant. (Key parts of Navigation like Ticking Features and Catching Features aren’t even in the manual!)
Get people qualified and deliver NNAS instead, a product which is exactly at ten right level for out Cadets and is current and upto date.
It doesn’t bring anything else to the party per se. It’s an equivalent qualification to BEL / LEL in terms of remit, but it’s part of the Mountain Training suite of courses - which when HQAC have a providership for Mountain Training already, it makes sense to get on board with seeing as we offer all their other qualifications. Sports Leaders charge £350 a year to any centre, regardless of whether you deliver a course or not, so that’s a significant negative aspect and why I stopped using them.
Yes, it’s a day walk award after the assessment - but that’s what some people want. Another weekend will get you the exped tick (48hrs of contact time in total, then your personal experience time). Bear in mind that BEL / LEL was something like 120-odd guided learning hours, plus 8 or so day walks. So the time commitment was fairly sizeable.
Lowland leader requires 20 QLDs at assessment which at four hours journey time or more is another 80+hrs of personal experience time. So overall,the Lowland Leader is less of a time commitment to get the same remit.
Edit: having just checked, the current LEL is 135 hours total, so they are broadly the same in terms of actual hours.
So Flt Lt Bloggs from 123 Sqn can use the next door park as part of his EUF.
But for Sgt Smith from 124 Sqn to come and do the same activity in the same park, which isn’t part of his EUF he needs to have additional qualifications. Perfectly logical
1). Less direct Contact time so you can manage it at your own pace.
2) Prior experience is taken into account. (Your days in your D-Log).
3) It doesn’t include the Expedition Element in the core award. So those who are just looking to run NNAS or Navigation on a Squadron don’t have to do it, but it’s modular so if they do want to get involved in Expeds it’s easily added.
4) It’s modular so if you advance to Hill and Moorland the Exped Module remains current.
5) We use Mountain Training for our bigger Trekking Awards plus Climbing so it’s all in one place and you are used to the D-Log system.
6) If you start out working for a higher level award (HML or ML) and then want to do an LLA assessment you can without the need to do a training course.
I don’t have anything against BEL, there was a time when it filled a valuable gap in the skills market, but now that Mountain Training have an alternative it’s seems silly to not embrace that as our core qualification for newly qualified staff.
Exactly the same with Fieldcraft, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
But as an OC and now as a WATTO I am firmly of the opinion that where possible every Squadron should strive to have at least 1 member of staff with a Trekking qualification. (I’ve been a 1 man band, I know it’s not always possible).
Not having the expedition element as core for an outdoor qualification in an organisation which does a lot of expedition work and saying this is the way to go, makes no sense at all to simple soul like me. But then I don’t have a vested interest.
If you look at this thread the vast majority of people asking about qualifications want to run day walks not expeditions, so why do they want or need the overnight bit?
Plus even if you do want that bit it’s still less contact time than BEL.
There are occasionally, but as rare as rocking horse poo.
Until the thinking is changed to take simple single shot, bolt action cadet rifles out of the “wpns of war” category, requiring the Safe Shooting System, we will still have to suffer accordingly.
It’s so frustrating not to be able to set up / run an air rifle range (or even indoor .22 range) without submitting a RAM for approval, then once signed / returned, adding it to the SMS activity (CO + Wg Shoot Off approval). It means that ad-hoc range evenings cannot be actioned, especially due to last minute change of programme (no instructor for another pre-planned activity, poor weather for outdoor drill or field craft, whatever). It’s about a 1:1 ratio of admin : shooting time for a one hr range detail!
Oh, & the need to have an ammo orderly for air rifle pellets!!
Can’t just “crack on” in Scouting either, however it is much more lenient. Here is the list of different qual’s that you can use to be considered a “Range Conducting officer” in Scouting.
Look at it a different way, you want a piece of kit, you could buy something that does the specific thing you need to do, or you could buy something that for no more money gives you additional functionality. OK you might not use the additional functionality initially, but find you do and need it soon after. So LLA gives you the ability to do walks, but you have to go back to get some extra functionality, BEL everything in one go. But as I say I don’t a vested interest in outside concerns.
So while yes people are asking about doing day walks, a pound to a penny, they would like to have the immediate ability to do the camping bit, to add to the experience for the cadets.
It’s interesting that this has leaked into shooting which just for the sake of it has become overly complicated. One of the first things I did as staff was a weekend away to do a .22 shooting course. I and many others walked away from those weekend able to instruct on the .22, sign them off and run indoor ranges, which was all the majority needed and many thousands of cadets benefited. Compare that to a few years later and it became multiple courses and or people to achieve the same thing and the activity suffers.
