BSAC Instructor Trainer

Course aims

Since 1953 BSAC as gained high recognition for its comprehensive diver training programs and for the divers these programs produces. BSAC’s success is not only down to the 60 years plus experience in training divers with its comprehensive training publications, but the main success of BSAC, comes from it’s highly experienced Instructors. These instructors are most important element of the BSAC success and it is down to these instructors to produce BSAC divers to the highest standards possible. BSAC Instructors are considered as one of the key foundations of the BSAC organization.

It is therefore crucial that our Instructor Trainers are not only able to produce instructors to high standards but are also able to produce instructors that are dedicated to producing highly competent divers and more importantly, safe divers.

This course is aimed at BSAC Advanced Instructors, who are already highly experienced instructors themselves, and who are interested in becoming involved in teaching other divers in becoming Instructors.

Entry requirement

The entry requirement for the BSAC Instructor Trainer is a BSAC Advanced Instructor. The only equivalent rating to a BSAC Advanced Instructor is a CMAS 3 Star Instructor. BSAC Thailand would consider these instructors on an individual bases as possibly entry level candidates enrolling to this course.

Instructor Trainer Commitment

As an Instructor Trainer working in a BSAC Dive Centre, you will be expected to be committed to training new BSAC Instructors on a regular bases. To maintain your current teaching status and to keep your Instructor Trainer experience up to date, you are expected to train a minimum of 12 Open Water Instructors within a 2-year period. For Instructor Trainer’s, who are unable to meet these requirements, they will need to assist on future Instructor Training events in order to re-active their status.

If the Instructor Trainer is intending to work within the BSAC UK Branch system, then the Instructor Trainer is expected to teach on instructor events for a minimum of 6 to 8 weekends per year

Course duration

The initial Instructor Training Course duration is 2 - days. After attendance of this course, you will then need to assist on a variety of different Instructor Events i.e. Assistant Instructor Courses, Open Water Instructor Courses and Instructor Open Water Examinations under direct supervision of the course Chief Instructor. The duration of these assists will vary based on the examiners evaluation of your overall performance.

Course contents

The course is built around the Assistant Instructor Course and the Open Water Instructor Course. The syllabus is comprised of theory presentation, planning workshops and feedback and critique assessment sessions as well as pool and open water practical lessons

Instructor Foundation Course

The Instructor Trainer course starts by running you through the Instructor Foundation Course. Here you will start by looking at the aims and objectives of producing good instructors.

Coming up the BSAC Instructor grades you will be familiar with our progressive teaching methods. We now take a look at how to teach these same methods to our instructor trainees

After this we will look at the 8 essential criteria’s we need to achieve in order for the Instructor candidate to be successful in the Instructor Exams. There are 4 essential criteria’s in the theory lesson and 4 criteria’s in the practical lesson, plus several non- essential criteria’s

To achieve these criteria’s you will be expected to conduct a lesson planning session for each lesson. Once these lesson plans are complete you will present your lessons to other instructor candidates, both in the pool or sheltered water and the classroom.

Open Water Lessons

The planning workshop lessons are conducted in this lesson exactly like the ones mentioned in the Instructor Foundation Course. The open water lesson uses the same criteria as the pool lesson. The only difference in the open water section is there is additional practical planning lesson, which shows how to conduct a Dry Run workshop for your instructor trainees.

Instructor Trainer Critique

As an Instructor it is very important that you can not only analyze your student performance of a particular skill or lesson, but to also analyze your own performance teaching the skills/lesson.

In this section your group of Instructors Trainer candidates and you, together with the Instructor Examiner will review each other’s performance of the lessons that you have all just presented. Each candidate will need to identify the areas of the lesson that they did well and areas where they could improve as well open thinking and effective contributions towards the lesson. This is a very important quality of an instructor, in order to improve or maintain his or her own ability to teach effectively.

Open Water Instructor Exam

The course instructor will run the candidates through the different elements of the OWI Instructor exam as well as how the exams are marked. Once you know what is to be expected on the Instructor Examination and the achievement target which the trainee instructor must reach. This will give you, the Instructor Trainer your own targets to aim for.

What’s next?

After attending this course the next step is to be examined and gain hands-on experience working with real instructor trainees. You will need to successfully assist on the following Instructor Events, an Assistant Instructor Course, an Open Water Instructor course plus a number of Instructor Exams. Throughout all of these events you will be continually assessed on your performance. Once you have met the level expected from a BSAC Instructor Trainer, you will be award the Instructor Trainer qualification.