Welcome back to the Instructor Forum! It was fantastic to see so many regulars come down to welcome our lovely new IFCers to the instructor forum after the long summer break. As it was the first one since the summer break we decided to look over the changes to training records and exams that have been put in place over the summer. The old training logs have served us well, so the new ones largely follow the same format. As our new assistant instructors aren’t familiar with the training records we took the opportunity to look at the new system in detail.
Drum roll please…. training packs have gone digital
One thing thats come up several times when we’ve asked for feedback is the wish for digital training packs so that you are able to review packs in advance of lessons, and now the time has come to go digital.
The digital logs are all saved in a shared folder which can be accessed here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yRYGSU2nnET-SX5gz7W0F7N29TD4dkx5?usp=sharing, anyone with the link can open the folder so please don’t share it outside the instructors. Alternative you can navigate to the Instructor Forum section of the website and select Training logs from the sub-menu. From there you can either click on the link or click on the folder of the person you want to look at, both will open in google drive.
Whats inside the training pack?
First up we have a student info page which is fairly self explanatory. We will be asking for photos so it’s easily to identify who’s who, this will take a little while to bed in so if you see a pic missing remind the student to send one to the training team.
The Summary page shows all elements of diver grade that need to be completed, usually one per diving grade. The combined AOD/SD pack has a separate summary page for crossover, AOD, AOD-SD and SD. Any cells shaded in the blue colour will auto-populate when you fill in other sections of the training pack. Students should really pick whether they are going down the AOD then AOD-SD route or going straight for SD and buy the appropriate training pack so it should be clear which section you need to complete. Any lessons added for AOD that are relevant to SD will also auto-populate, these are shaded grey. The pill shape in the experience dive section is to allow you to pick the appropriate experience dive the student has completed.
To record theory lessons, please complete the appropriate row on the Summary page. If the exam is taken and passed on the same day you can check the box and this will add your same details to the exam for this lesson. Fancy I know! If the exam is passed on another day then just fill in the details on the exam row.
The pool and capernwray sections should look very familiar to those used to using the paper training records. Each lesson is broken down into different tasks, the lesson is completed when all tasks are performed to standard. If you teach a lesson when only some of the elements are completed, complete only the relevant rows for those skills. If you attempt a skill but the student needs to repeat another day then put the skill level as Basic, if they completed the skill to standard put Good and if they have completed above standard then put Merit. If you complete a the lesson in full or complete the missing elements of a lesson someone else started then please complete the Completed in full – please complete to sign off full lesson row to sign off the full lesson. Completing this part will sign it off on the summary sheet automatically. If you repeat a skill where someone scored Basic in a previous lesson then there are additional columns to the right you can use. Dry practicals work in the same way, these are less tried and tested so any feedback on them is very welcome.
The Experience sheet is for recording experience dives. When the diver grade required a number of dives from a select list, please also update this on the Summary sheet. If the experience is one of a number of the same dive then this should auto-populate on the summary sheet.
Qualified instructors need to update BSAC as well as the SUSAC training log
When BSAC started using Sports80 the paper QRBs went digital, it’s taken a little while to settle in but now all completed training elements needs to be signed off on the BSAC site in addition to updating the local records. This includes theory lessons, exams, pool session, open water lessons, dry practicals and experience dives. If you are an OWI or higher, please log onto the BSAC site and sign off the relevant element once you are satisfied the student has met the standard. All club instructors should have appropriate access, if you don’t please get in touch with the training team. If you’re not sure how to do this, please look on the main page of the instructor forum, if you scroll towards the bottom there are links to videos from BSAC which show how to view and update the students record.
OD and SD exam papers have also gone digital
OD and SD students can access both paper A and paper B for each lesson in the relevant course. Nitrox workshop exam is also available for OD crossovers. To access instructors need to direct students to the members section of SUSAC.com, from there they need to select the Exam papers option from the sub-menu. All links are password protected so once they are ready the instructor will give them the password and they can start.
Instructors can access the passwords through the Instructor Forum section of the website, if you’re reading this you should know the password to access this area. Select the Exam passwords option from the sub-menu and you have the passwords for all digital exams. They are all made up of 3 random(ish) words with a dash between each word so should be easy to read out.
The exam paper works as a register as all students should attempt the exam, even if they don’t pass it so you no longer need to take a paper record of attendees. The exams will mark themselves and should tell the student their mark once they have submitted their answers. You can find the results of the students exams by navigating to the Training logs section of the website (see above) and opening the XX_Exam results folder. Within this folder there is a file for each diver grade with the results from all exams for that grade in. Instructors should have time to update students training packs with theory lesson attendance while the students are doing their exam and can check off the exam once the marks are in. On the very rare occasion that a student attends the lecture but doesn’t attempt the exam please update their training record with just the lesson attendance.
This is a new to the seasoned instructors as it is to the new assistant instructors, we hope it will make all of our lives easier in the long run, in the short term there may be a few glitches as we iron out the process so please feedback to the training team if things dont work smoothly.
