Having specific Coaching Levels for each of our coaches gives clearer guidance to our students as to which coach would be an appropriate choice for them, as well as giving clear structure for progression to our coaching team.

Our team have thought hard on how the levels of coaches are calculated, and this calculation has gone through several iterations before reaching this final version: whilst there are clear benefits for our coaches and our students in introducing these Coaching Levels, it is tremendously important to us that this change gives equal opportunities for all coaches (I.e. if the calculation was entirely based on their climbing grade, this would be very unfair towards anyone who only gained access to climbing recently, or to paraclimbers.)

The Coaching Levels of our team is calculated as a combination of their number of years climbing, their number of years coaching, their climbing grade, and (most importantly) an assessment by our Head Coach to determine their additional experience in teaching/ communication/ presentation skills, whether they have completed other self-directed learning and what their level of experience is in various disciplines of climbing.

ALL of our coaches, regardless of level, are highly competent coaches - passing our coaching assessment requires that coaches show outstanding levels of communication skills, group management and understanding of all the content they learned during their training course. Earning a higher level comes primarily from further climbing and coaching experience!

You can find out a coach's level by looking out for the badge on their image on the 'Our Coaches' page.