Awarding Centres

How to become an Awarding Centre

If you own or run a climbing wall you can apply to become an Awarding Centre for NICAS and run the scheme yourself.

Awarding Centres must have a named Course Director who will be responsible for the delivery of the scheme at their centre. The Course Director should read the scheme handbook, particularly the section on ‘Requirements for Awarding Centres‘. This will detail the requirements needed for delivering each level of the scheme.
The Course Director then needs to fill out an Awarding Centre Registration Form and send this to us with the annual fee. This form will need to be countersigned by a Technical Advisor who knows your climbing wall and can vouch for your application.
The annual fees are currently £30 to deliver Levels 1 and 2 and £50 to deliver Levels 1 to 4. Only Primary Centres may deliver Level 5 at present.
Course Directors (and key staff) need to attend an induction workshop every three years in order to run the scheme. These are provided by the Primary Centres and currently cost £25 per person.
Awarding Centres will need to keep simple records of certificates awarded and return these to the ABCTT on an annual basis. A Candidate Record Sheet is available to download on this site.

How to deliver the award if you are an individual instructor

If you are a qualified climbing instructor (see instructor requirements in the Handbook) but do not work for a climbing wall you can still deliver the scheme through an Awarding Centre. The Awarding Centre will need to induct you first and then you may deliver the levels of the scheme that you are trained and qualified for. You may train and assess the scheme but all certificates must be awarded by the Awarding Centre.

You must operate through the Awarding Centre so that they can moderate your performance and that of your candidates. Other climbing walls may be used for training as long as the Awarding Centre is satisfied with you doing so.