NICAS level 3

[belay]

Getting really frustrated for my D's. He's been climbing and bouldering for several years. He has been on level 3 NICAS for over a year because they expect him to be climbing grade 6b. "To improve climbing by one grade". He's just been picked for the school bouldering team out of 18 people.
Has the climbing centre set too high a target? There are kids working through level 4 who can't climb 6b or even 6a.

I wondered about that when I first read the NICAS stuff, the target is improve a grade though, not be climbing a particular grade - presumably to make it accessible to anyone - but I guess your DS probably logged 6a's for his NICAS 2, therefore would need to log 6b (maybe I dunno, maybe 7a - what's a "full grade")

For me, NICAS seems almost entirely pointless ("watch and describe a video about climbing is on the syllabus") and not really related to any sort of climbing ability.

So I wouldn't care what particularly award, is he still learning to climbing, including leading and things which are notionally only on the 4 syllabus. Is he still progressing in skills/ability, if he was climbing 6a over a year ago and still climbing 6a, then that suggests perhaps not? But that's what I'd query with the climbing folk, rather than particularly the NICAS awards themselves, unless that's all he's motivated about.

They won't let them lead climb until the level 3 is signed off. It's all signed off apart from climbing 6b consistently. He's very capable of lead climbing and I feel that he's missing out

Then that sounds pretty rubbish, I think only they can really say what improving a grade is, and why they haven't done it, and what he actually needs to do to achieve. I'm sure it can't be an absolute level, but maybe why not improved, I'd certainly question that anyway!

Great that your school has a climbing team, DD would love that!