Confused? The Canoe Wales Coaching Scheme explained...

Here at Canoe Wales, we regularly interact with coaches, members and clubs who are understandably unsure of how the coaching scheme works within Wales and more broadly here in the UK. Therefore, we thought it was a good opportunity to put together a news item that describes how it all works to deal with some of your questions, as we appreciate it can sometimes be a little confusing!

Relationship with British Canoeing Awarding Body (BCAB)

Canoe Wales is a Delivery Centre for the British Canoeing Awarding Body qualifications and awards. British Canoeing Awarding Body (BCAB) is like the City & Guilds of paddlesport qualifications – they are the awarding body and work to develop the awards and qualifications in light of customer feedback and ensure they are delivered in a consistent and effective manner. They have been doing it for over 35 years and are recognised and regulated by the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), the Council of Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA and Qualifications Wales so they are highly regulated and are seen as the industry standard.

While a number of British Canoeing staff work for British Canoeing Awarding Body (BCAB), BCAB is a separate organisation and does not deliver any of the awards and qualifications themselves. They approve and contract a number of "delivery centres" who are essentially like a franchise – they are able to deliver BCAB qualifications and awards across a specified region or area of the country (or world), but have to ensure that they comply with BCAB regulations and financial agreements. 

The Delivery Centres

The four main Delivery Centres of BCAB qualifications and awards are Paddles Up Training (England and international), SCA (Scotland), CANI (Northern Ireland) and Canoe Wales (Wales). While the Delivery Centres have representation on a number of BCAB strategic working groups and committees, we do not have control over the design and development of the qualifications and awards themselves – this sits within BCAB.

What are ‘Providers’?

In delivering the qualifications and awards within Wales, Canoe Wales (as a Delivery Centre) recruits "Providers" of the different qualifications and awards. The Providers are British Canoeing qualified coaches who are recognised by a Delivery Centre to deliver British Canoeing qualifications and awards within their region or area. Once recruited, a Provider must remain eligible to run British Canoeing qualifications and awards (usually meaning having up to date membership, CPD, First Aid and Safeguarding), deliver a set number of courses per year, and attend Moderation & Standardisation events run by the Delivery Centre. They also have to ensure they register all courses with the Delivery Centre and that all details of those who passed the course are registered with the Delivery Centre.

Standardisation

The courses that Providers run are also standardised by the Delivery Centre. Standardisation is what maintains standards and helps to guarantee the integrity and value of the qualifications through their lifecycle; it's also sometimes referred to as "quality assurance". This could mean desk-based standardisation where the Standards Officer checks paperwork, candidate eligibility, assessment authorisation and other planning documents such as lesson plans. It could also mean field visits where a Standards Officer observes a Provider delivering a course, or it can relate to peer and course feedback. Each Delivery Centre develops a sampling plan (which is approved by BCAB) and shows they are effectively internally verifying their Providers.

If the Standardisation picks up an infringement to the process and procedure to running a BCAB course or assessment effectively, there is a range of sanctions the Delivery Centre can put in place to maintain the integrity, consistency and fairness of the awards and qualifications. It is important to note that this is all with the aim of maintaining the quality and consistency of the awards and qualifications.

Who can become a Provider?

If you are a qualified British Canoeing coach and interested in becoming a Provider, you should contact the relevant Coaching Manager and ask about Provider recruitment. Each Delivery Centre will be constantly monitoring demand for qualifications and awards and will recruit more Providers for that particular award and qualification is there is the demand to satisfy that supply. They will be able to explain the process you will have to follow to attain "Providership" in a particular award and qualification and the work you will have to do to maintain that level of recognition.

If you are a member of Canoe Wales or living in Wales, you'll need to contact our Coaching Manager at Coaching@canoewales.com about the path to becoming a provider.

Summary

We hope that helps to explain how the coaching scheme works here in Wales and more generally in the UK. It really is a robust system and not a wonder that BCAB has recently won a number of awards such as the 2018 UK Coaching "Coaching Culture Organisation of the Year".

We hope it also helps to demonstrate what we can and can’t control here in Wales. We’ve a really strong relationship with BCAB (and British Canoeing) and can feed your comments and thoughts up to them but we cannot control the nature and development of the British Canoeing qualifications and awards – that sits with the awarding body, BCAB.

It should be noted that we have developed our governance here in Wales. Our Coaching, Leadership & Safety Sub-committee has been introduced to you in a separate news item here and we encourage you to engage with them if you have strong views or feedback.