Award Winning Outdoor Activities
Rock Climbing Instructor Assessment (RCI)
Rock Climbing Instructor (RCI) Assessment in partnership with Adventure Expertise
Summary
There are many reasons for doing the Rock Climbing Instructors Course. 'Giving back to the climbing Community', An exciting career change or just benchmarking your existing technical skill and knowledge. This scheme will be both challenging and rewarding and will surprise with the amount of new learning no matter how long you have been climbing. Good Luck!
Highlights
- Excellent facilities in the heart of the Peak District
- Complete your journey to become a Rock Climbing Instructor
- Experienced Instructors
Course Overview
The Rock Climbing Instructor Award is about supervising safe climbing and abseiling sessions on non-remote, single pitch crags and in climbing walls. The Rock Climbing Instructor Award has been designed to prove competence in the supervision of safe and effective climbing sessions.
Mountain Training England provider Adventure Expertise in conjunction with Pure Outdoor is offering the opportunity to participate in a RCI Assessment. The scheme is open to all climbers who are at least eighteen years of age and interested in introducing people to the sport of rock climbing.
Candidates must ensure that they have fulfilled all prerequisites of the course and are expected to provide their own personal climbing equipment.
Stages in the Rock Climbing Instructor Scheme
1. Gain personal rock climbing experience. This should amount to at least fifteen lead climbs on traditionally protected routes.
2. Register for the RCI scheme with Mountain Training. In order to do this you will need to be a current British Mountaineering Council (BMC) member. Registering for the scheme will give you access to a digital logbook where you can record your rock climbing experience.
3. Attend a RCI Training course.
4. Consolidate experience between training and assessment courses.
5. Attend a RCI Assessment course.
About the Rock Climbing Instructor Course
This award trains and assesses candidates in the skills required to supervise climbers on single pitch crags and climbing walls. Common activities undertaken by an RCI holder will be roped climbing and bouldering. The RCI does not include the skills and techniques required to teach lead climbing.
Course Timings
Day 1: 9am – 7.30pm (including 4 hours at a climbing wall in Sheffield)
Day 2: 9am – 5pm
Booking with our partner provider
Upon completing your booking on the Pure Outdoor website, your details will be forwarded to our partner provider, who will contact you with final course information details and payment information.
Course Outcomes
- Technical competence (including equipment, anchors, belaying, abseiling, personal climbing skills, background knowledge of rock climbing)
- The climbing environment (including access, conservation, etiquette)
- Supervising climbing sessions (including organisation, group management, supervising the session, personal safety and working with children and vulnerable persons)
Course Information
- You must have attended a Rock Climbing Instructor (or Single Pitch Award) training course or been granted exemption from training.
- You must be familiar with the syllabus.
- You must be competently leading Severe grade climbs on outdoor crags with leader-placed protection.
- You must have led (and logged) a minimum of 40 graded rock climbs with traditional protection at a variety of venues (of which at least 20 MUST be at Severe grade or above).
- You must be proficient in the use of climbing walls and have a minimum of 30 climbing wall leads graded at F4 or above.
- You must be proficient in outdoor bolt protected sport climbing and have a minimum of 10 sport climb leads graded at F4 or above.
- You must have assisted in the supervision of 20 instructed sessions post training. These sessions should be at a variety of different venues with 10 being on indoor climbing walls and the other 10 on outdoor crags. A session is a half day or evening.
- You must hold a valid first aid certificate (see our outdoor specific First Aid courses here)
FAQs
Bookings can be made online or over the phone. All of our courses can be booked in 3 ways:
a) Attend a scheduled course.
These are open to the public to anyone that meets the pre-requisites. We often advertise many dates for each course, we generally always list 12 months of available dates. This is the most popular and often works out the most cost-effective way of attending our courses.
b) Add a date to our schedule.
On some courses, we can add extra dates to our schedule, providing you are booking for a certain minimum number of participants, this could be as low as only 2 people. To give us plenty of time to assign staff to your course, you can only add a date to the schedule if it is more than 7 days in advance.
c) Make a private booking.
All of our courses can be booked privately, with a private instructor just for you or your group. This gives you the flexibility to book any date that suits you and also it means the instructor can fine-tune the course content to suit your aspirations. To make a private booking, you just need to fill out a booking request, we will then get back to you with availability and a price.
d) Book our premium 'Private Booking Plus+' service.
All the benefits of the private booking service, with lots of additional extras including meet & greet at your hotel, luxury picnic hamper including Champagne, digital photo pack, flexible booking arrangements and a pre-activity consultancy to allow your first-class instructor extra time to design your special day. To make a private booking plus+ booking, you just need to fill our a booking request, we will then get back to you with availability and a price.
Anyone aged 13 or over can attend any of our scheduled courses with the exception of Mountain Biking and Winter Skills where the minimum age is 18 unless accompanied by a parent.
We hold an AALA license and are able to take out children who are younger than 13, however we only offer this on a private guided basis. See our private guiding rates, as this can work out very competitive, especially when booking as a family. There is no maximum age, if you feel young enough to attend then you are very welcome!
Our instructors can be booked privately to deliver this course. Benefit from private tuition, pick a date that suits you and your instructor can design the day to suit your needs. You can hire one of our instructors from just £250 inc vat per day. (Click here to book a private course)