A-Level lead climbing course for Cardinal Newman College. 8 x 1 hour sessions with 7 participants aged 17-18. The group are taught to top-rope by their college lecturers on their college climbing wall. The lecturers operate on in-house sign-offs so the quality of the groups movement and top-rope skills are highly varied. Contentiously, the group do not need to learn to lead belay and so only lead climbing is taught.
A competent assistant was used for this session. 17 year old newman student who holds NICAS level 4. Used for demonstration climbing and as a belayer.
Session 1 - Intro to bouldering safety, Footwork and transfer of weight between their feet. Strong focus on warming up so that students can do this more independently for weeks 2-8.
Session 2 - Intro to Auto Belay safety, route reading and building on the movement skills of week 1.
Session 3 - Intro to clipping (and usually a refresher on tying in and belaying).
Session 4 - common clipping errors and more clipping practice.
Session 5 - First leads! Whilst I was belaying, the college lecturer supervised top-roping on steeper ground so the students can start to find their assessment routes.
Session 6 - Finding projects continued and more instructor belayed lead experience.
Session 7 - Sending projected (collecting evidence of them leading 5+ or more).
Session 8 - Final evidence collection and de-brief.
Area :
Preston Wall
Artificial climbing structure
