Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@peanuthead, there are no formal levels, because unlike in France, there is no national (near-)monopoly on ski instruction. Most places have 3-4 competing schools, and each school exists just in the local resort in almost all cases. English is almost universally used now, with many of the kids instructors in Austria being Dutch, so if the kids struggled with French instructors who had either limited or no language skills, this will be a real eye-opener for them.
The usual Austrian approach is to ask what standard they are at when you sign them up, in terms of whether they can do snowploughs, parallel turns, carving, etc and then they get assigned to a tentative grouping based on ability and languages. Then when they do their initial runs on the lower slopes, they can gauge whether you've given them an accurate picture of your child's ability, and move them up or down a class if necessary. This also happens during the week, so if the slowest person in one group is well behind the others, the instructor may swap them into a lower group and take the best from that group instead - there's a certain amount of horsetrading, and if you want kids to be kept together they're usually happy to oblige as long as they're at similar levels.
I'm not familiar with Ischgl, but would be amazed if it is massively different.
At the end of the week, the kids will probably be offered the option of taking part in a simple race with their class, with medals for the top 3 and certificates for everyone else. It's usually about a 10 gate slalom course, and on the learner slopes, so they'll complete it easily but gain some confidence from doing it, and with their parents watching. Unlike France, there are no gold stars, ratings, or kids crying because they didn't "pass" the week and make it to the next level. One of the many reasons why our kids learned in Austria...
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