FAQs

Registration is done through the membership portal of whichever National Association you are a member. For further information please see our Registration Guidance page.

Please note that Registration is a separate procedure for the Coach Award Assessment Check in. If you are about to attend a Coach Award Assessment then you will also need to complete a free-of-charge check in form on your membership portal that checks all of your prerequisites. It is also your confirmation to your provider that you have everything in place to go to assessment.

Click here to find out more about Check-in.

All non-regulated course certificates (Leadership, Personal Development and Safety) can be downloaded from your British Canoeing (or other National Association) membership portal.

All you need to do is find the award in your qualifications or credentials section, double click on it and a download button should appear which allows you to download a copy.

If you wish to have a duplicate regulated qualification certificate (Coaching Courses) then these must be requested through British Canoeing Awarding Body here.

If you are wanting to make a start in paddlesport coaching or leading but aren’t sure where to start please use our Career Start tool to help steer you in the right direction. This can be found here.

Or alternatively, if you are just wanting to take awards to help hone your personal skills then you may wish to look at our Personal Performance Awards or our Safety awards.

Our develop skills section here can help you choose the most suitable course.

The First Aid course you need depends on what conditions you are wanting to coach or lead or take a coaching or leadership award in.

If you are booking a First Aid course for an assessment please make sure you check what length of first aid course is required before booking one, this can be found on the course page on our website or in the course documents.

For example, if you are planning on taking a Moderate Water Leader Award Assessment this requires you to have at least a 2-day First Aid course on your record.

If you are planning to take a Sheltered Water Coach Award then you would only need a 1 day First Aid course as you will be working in more sheltered conditions.

For further information on choosing a first aid course please see our page on selecting a First Aid course here.

The old Paddlesport Instructor has the same remit as the UKCC Level 1 coach which was as a supporting coach.

They are able to be deployed on Very Sheltered and Sheltered Water. If a Level 1 coach was to be deployed to work independently, then they would need to be given site specific training.

This qualification looked at skills in both Canoe and Kayak and supervision/coaching of paddlers in the same craft.

The New Paddlesport Instructor is geared towards providing starter sessions on Very Sheltered Water, and they can do this independently once they have enough experience to lead a session independently at the discretion of their deployer.

These can also be multi-craft sessions including SUPs, with the Instructor being able to work from a craft of their choice.

If they wish to expand the craft they work in, they can do so by either taking on-site training or a British Canoeing Awarding Body Personal Performance Award.

To update your qualification, you will need to ensure you meet the requirements of our Update Scheme. This includes:

• Having an up-to-date British Canoeing On the Water membership (join on-site here), or SCA, Canoe Wales or CANI if you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland respectively.
• You will need to have taken an appropriate First Aid qualification in the last 3 years.
• You will also need to have a Safeguarding Qualification that has been taken in the last 3 years. This can be either face-to-face or online dependent on whom you are coaching.
• Finally, you must also undertake some CPD every three years. CPD stands for Continuous Professional Development and this can be in the form of a British Canoeing course or something external that has helped shape your coaching practice.

You can find out more in our guidance article here.

Yes, you are required to take a Safeguarding course. But if you do not work with vulnerable adults or children, then this can be an eLearning course such as the British Canoeing Introduction to Safeguarding.

Also, if you work with vulnerable adults and/or children and have completed a face-to-face course more than three years ago and now have to update, this can also be done online.

Further information can be found on our Choosing a safeguarding qualification page here.

You can see your coaching update status on your membership profile. Once you have logged in you will need to click on the member details section of your profile, and then click the tab labelled coach update.

This will display the expiry dates of your First Aid, Safeguarding and CPD. If you want to prove to someone else that you are up to date you can also use this page as evidence.

Alternatively, click here for our quick status check widget, and enter your email address and membership number. This will provide a traffic light system for the points of the Coach Update scheme you need to bring up to date.

To deliver any of the new PPAs you must have completed the PPA Provider eLearning, this costs £15 and will update your CPD record.

For the Paddle Start and Paddle Discover certificates, any coach who has completed the PPA eLearning can run them.

For the Paddle Explore and the Personal Performance Awards, please see the provider role page here for further information.

Coaches who hold On the Water membership are provided with professional indemnity insurance up to £10million.

To be entitled to this you need to be up to date and to not have a turnover larger than £25,000 from your coaching.