Qualifications needed to teach?

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poiuytrewq

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Do you actually need any certain level of qualification to instruct?
Properly advertise, give and charge for tuition?
Someone asked me recently what I thought of a certain local instructor and I was slightly insure on all the ins and outs!
 
No not at all you will find a lot of instructors out there with no formal qualifications but lots of experience. There will be good and bad ones both qualified and non qualified. However a non qualified instructor will struggle to find insurance and in this day and age insurance is very important!
 
As a general rule the instructors I like have experience not qualifications... I doubt the likes of Carl Hester and Gareth Hughes have formal bhs qualifications but I'd be very happy to have a lesson with them
 
BUT.... There's a big difference between someone with oodles of top level competition experience giving lessons and Joe Blogs who has just decided to start giving lessons and not to do exams because they'd never pass them.

However it is a minefield nowadays, even more so now that a lot of people learn at college and university. Before I did my AI at college I worked in a riding school, so had two years of teaching experience even before I started training for exams, and three years of working with horses and riding different liveries/schooling horses. I know someone who has just done their AI and a BSc in equine and got a job as a lecturer, despite having absolutely no experience in the big wide world and not being that great a rider (bought a horse a pro had evented at novice but has fallen off two out of four rounds at BE100).
 
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I've been teaching for years as well.
I did actually do my instructor training in another country, where I lived before moving to the UK, but these qualifications are not recognised in the UK so I am insured as an unqualified freelance. Also with Shearwater, as above, it was no trouble at all. A lot more expensive than the BHS registered insurance, but tax deductible and easy enough to earn back anyway, so it's not a problem.
 
You can teach people on their own horses, but once you begin to supply the horse you are into the hiring horses for gain legislation, and for that you need a license. Local authority, vet checks, LA regular checks and insurance is a requirement.
If you are teaching people on their own horses what are you insuring against peeps? I'm genuinely curious, unless it is facility hire?
 
twiggy2 said:
insurance is what you need to check not qualifications and insurance is easy to get insured or not
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This. If going for a non qualified instructor, check that they are insured and ask to know their record. For example, who they have coached, what their experince/competition level is etc.
 
JillA said:
You can teach people on their own horses, but once you begin to supply the horse you are into the hiring horses for gain legislation, and for that you need a license. Local authority, vet checks, LA regular checks and insurance is a requirement.
If you are teaching people on their own horses what are you insuring against peeps? I'm genuinely curious, unless it is facility hire?
Click to expand...

If I get your query correctly, the answer is that if you were to have a rider have an accident then they *could* say that you asked too much of them / placed poles at incorrect distances / did not take account of the fact that it is windy / did not notice that their tack was not correctly adjusted / did not notice a fault with the school / sneezed at the wrong moment as they passed / wore a crinkley jacket........ the list is endless.

You are insuring so that if an accident does occur, you have legal representation to hopefully prove it was not your error or omission, of if worst case scenario it is then you will not lose your house paying out compensation.

I also like to think that although I am careful and conscientious, if somehow I did miss something and a client had an accident, they would have a big company obliged to pay then to make their life easier. It is the least I can do.
 
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