Cairngorm Mountain Snow School Get Approval from BASI

CairnGorm Mountain Snow School has achieved ‘BASI Approved Ski School Status’ in its first operational year. Approval followed a January 2016 assessment by BASI. The Snow School met the criteria and quality standards and is now ‘Quality Assured’ as part of the BASI Approved Ski School Scheme.

CairnGorm Snow School Jan 2016 1

Tim Davey, Snow School Manager, CairnGorm Mountain Snow School said:

“We are absolutely delighted to have recently become a BASI Approved Ski School. Having launched our brand new Snow School only this year, the Quality Assurance Programme has helped us ensure that we have all the right procedures, staff training and infrastructure to deliver top quality snowsports lessons. We hope that this is just the start for us and we are looking forward to working with BASI over the coming years!”

The CairnGorm Mountain Snow School was launched back in November 2015 and despite a later start to the season than normal, is now into its first year of operation as Cairngorm’s in-house Ski and Snowboard School offering professional instruction for all levels. All instructors hold professional qualifications and many have valuable years of experience teaching at CairnGorm Mountain.

BASI is the approved body in the UK for the training and licensing of professional snowsport instructors. As such, it has a responsibility to ensure that British holiday

makers know what instructor qualifications, standards of competence and safety they can expect from ski schools and centres when selecting lessons. The ‘BASI Approved Ski School Quality Assurance Programme’ has been developed so that the general public can easily identify organisations that have been inspected and meet these high standards. The Snow School’s inspection was conducted at the beginning of January 2016 as soon as lessons got underway at CairnGorm Mountain.

“BASI Approved Ski School” is a quality assurance kite mark that is awarded only to those ski schools who can demonstrate the provision of an exceptional snowsports learning experience. Ski schools that are awarded the kitemark will have successfully undertaken a rigorous assessment of their business practise, instructor recruitment, training and lesson delivery. In order to retain and use the BASI Approved Ski School kite mark, schools must undertake a re-assessment every three years.

The BASI Approved Ski School Quality Assurance Programme is aimed at organisations or venues, which promote, sell and deliver snowsports instruction directly to the general public and is the direct employer of qualified instructors. These include snowsport schools and artificial slopes or indoor centres that provide instruction as part of their services and might also include holiday companies that arrange snowsports courses as part of their holiday programme.

Full details of the BASI Approved Ski School Quality Assurance Programme can be obtained by calling BASI on 01479 861717 or here http://www.basi.org.uk/content/basi-approved-ski-schools.aspx.