DS wants to work in outdooor sports

[MitchellGirl]

DS is 18 and sporty. Wants a career in outdoor sports - watersports etc. All the local colleges seem to have only courses geared towards working in gyms/being a personal trainer.

Do courses exist in outdoor sports? How would he get into this line of work?

Don't know where you live but Hartpury College near Gloucester do a level 3 BTEC. Whether they do a degree level course in it but they do degree courses there so might do an outdoor one

Hope that makes sense

Maybe something like this course?.

www.shuttleworth.ac.uk/our-courses/subjects/outdoor-adventure

Sparsholt College, outside Winchester, Hants, do the Outdoor Adventure diploma too.

Hundreds of them

uksa.org/professional-training/uksa-careers-service/ These guys are fantastic, well worth giving them a call for advice.

our local college does the btec level 3 outdoor sports course Look at Pgs 22 and 26 here

Dd trained and worked for kingswood she is now an activity instructor at centre parcs. Maybe your ds could train that way?

There is a Marine College in Cornwall. They do watersports and other such courses.

www.falmouthmarineschool.ac.uk/search/courses?title=&radius=&location=&page=1&. Here. They do degrees, as he is 18, will he be looking at uni courses?

I also worked at Kingswood after leaving 6th Form I then went to Uni and studied Outdoor Recreation. Many of my friends from then have gone on to be very successful careers as outdoor instructors working in the Alps etc.

There are BTECs in Outdoor Activities that are available at some colleges.

Some companies offer intense instructor training, however these can be expensive and whilst excellent at getting qualifications over a short space of time many qualifications require you to take part in it over several months such as the Mountain Leaders Award that require you to fill in a logbook over several months.

I would recommend that for now he gets involved in Scouts and see if he can get some qualis instructing with them. I would then perhaps look at Apprenticeships with companies such as Kingswood, PGL, RobinWood these will equip him with some in house qualifications, a nationally recognised apprenticeship and lower level instructor qualifications - archery/fencing/life guarding if he enjoys these then look into a degree course or working for another outdoor company and get higher level qualis.

My ds did a sports degree and could only find work as a volunteer.
The public sector has been cut for many years now and the private survives on zero hour contracts or seasonal.
Make sure he does something else alongside it, so when he is volunteering he still has a paid job.
Something like business, management would be a good idea.