But at this point they are not legally responsible for others’ safety.
I’d expect:
And I’d expect them to be assessed in all of these aspects while looking after a group of people.
All covered as part of initial training. You don’t need fancy quals.
So all of your instructors coming out of their intial course could provide good, solid advice having been assessed on, for example (selected from the Lowland Leader syllabus):
National walking initiatives.
Understand the scope of the Lowland Leader Award scheme and plan walks that lie within this terrain
Know where to find information to assist with the planning of walks
Understand what is required to plan and successfully lead a walk
Understand common health problems and disabilities and the impact they may have on the walk
Weather forecasts – sources, interpretation and assessing impact on planned walks and equipment requirements
Suitable personal clothing and equipment for the lowland walking environment
Additional equipment carried by the leader
Use of walking poles
Manage a group to perform a small scale search for a missing person
current applicable legislation concerning access to the countryside including the law relating to rights of way and access to land and, the nature of specially designated areas and limitations on their use
Knowledge of countryside flora and fauna
Knowledge of local history, place names, etc.
If they do, your initial course must be a hell of a different beast to ours…
Some but not all. I would say that a lot of that there is not required for a 2 hour navigation practice in the local area. For expeditions it makes a lot more sense. By the sounds of it, that course is overkill for the situation raised in the initial post.
But your regulations don’t place a 2hr limit on what your instructors can do, do they? All of those elements are as required on a day walk as they are on an expedition.
The time is not the important bit, it is the scope of the walk/training. We have systems in place to check our proposed training and ensure we have what is required for the job. What we don’t do is require every qualification under the sun for activities where it is just not required. The goal with training is to not eliminate all potential risks but to make the risk “as low as reasonably practicable”.
And many would argue that ensuring your leaders are trained and assessed against a national, accredited, best practice standard does precisely that.
Would that be 'many who have either forked out for hugely expensive and time consuming qualifications, or who provide hugely expensive and time consuming qualifications, and who don’t like the idea that the requirement for them could be significantly reduced without any negative impact on cadets?
Taking cadets into the mountains is undoubtedly NGB territory, taking cadets coasteering is undoubtedly NGB territory - taking cadets on a 8km route on forestry tracks in the Wyre Forest for a few hours Nav training isn’t.
Not particularly; if the organisation changed it’s policies then great - doesn’t mean I necessarily agree, but I would comply with them.
It’s probably fair to say though that few people understand the value of such training until they have been through it.
Exactly. If you put too many barriers in place for what can and should be simple training, people just won’t bother doing it at all.
i cant disagree with that…
however in my personal experience i gained my BEL 6 years ago.
For a variety of reasons all I have done with it is a day walk, and only not even a “full” 8 hour day’s walking.
despite the various weekends required in training, the 30-odd hours post training before assessment and then a Silver DofE award expedition, i have yet to camp using my BEL.
i have camped over night at events and because i hold BEL form part of a “useful” ratio, but in terms of a AT related camp/expedition nothing yet.
my point i have only ever done day walks, or Squadron based evening training (either teaching on Squadron or walking our local area) yet needed to jump through hoops on activities i’m yet to use
(disclaimer, i am not saying BEL is useless, i recognise it is a good/the right qualification for an overnight expedition, but for those unlikely to go that far it is an over-qualification but either BEL or LLA these are the minimums available)
Surely this is of your choice though? You could have delivered DofE expeditions, or static camping weekends where you go out from a base camp and do day walks…or expeditions just for the sake of it… but you have chosen not to, or been unable to for whatever reason.
The LLA is a day walk award - people don’t need to do the exped module if they don’t want to run expeds.
Which is the advantage of LLA, if you only want to lead day walks you don’t need to do the Expedition Skills Module.
Also the 10 days you have to log can have been logged many moons ago, no need to go out and do 10 days after you register. It’s 10 days experience. Also the further 10 days that you need for assessment can also have been done at any time.
So if you have 20 days walking experience already technically you can do you training followed by your assessment and start getting groups out.
Does this proposed area actually fall within the definition of ‘trekking’ in the ACATI? If not, you don’t need the quals.
That’s how road marching works.
yes and no.
to do the minimum walking i need BEL. yes i can deliver more but i was in the position then as @IETlecturer is now. just wanting to do walks.
not knowing enough about the LLA that is good news to hear…
…it was not an option for me 6 years ago so had to BEL. i can see the advantages of LLA over BEL more and more
Happy to have a discussion about this “stoic” choice with anyone who’s interested.
Have to admit I’m interested as to why the choice has gone that way.
I thought it was a map reading lesson, not AT surely?
He’s taking a group of Cadets walking, which is Trekking which is AT.
I still think there is mileage in both available to RAFAC.
BEL can take you from zero to hero and has no real prerequisite experience. LLA cannot cover everything that BEL does in a 2 day training session and 2 day assessment (plus 2 day ESM).
So if you’re not a regular AT type but want to break into the world of AT (and come from a non-AT orientated Sqn or Wg), you need additional development time - which BEL does.
However, if you’re an ex-Gold DofE type, with bags of experience, BEL can be an incredibly frustrating period of your life, where LLA can step in. Show you a few tricks, tweaks, group management type stuff - you’re learning curve is less steep and you’re moving towards polishing skills than going from scratch.
But that’s my spin on it…