PSIA Alpine Level I assesses people, teaching and technical skills for the beginner and novice teaching zone, together with professionalism and self-management. Prepare from the current national standards and your regional assessment guide, and arrange appropriate on-snow training and feedback for the performance elements.
Understand the Level I scope
The national standards associate Level I with beginner and novice students on green and easiest blue terrain. The Learning Connection framework brings together people, teaching and technical skills.
Technical assessment includes skiing performance, technical understanding and movement analysis. People and teaching skills cover how you learn about students, plan and deliver learning, and review progress.
Professionalism and self-management are assessed throughout the process, including interactions and responses to feedback. Prepare to demonstrate those behaviours consistently, not only during an assigned teaching task.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf
Check which assessment activities your region uses
The standards describe possible activities including online questions, interviews, video analysis, presentations, simulated or real lessons and skiing demonstrations.
The combination can vary by region and assessor. Use your regional guide for the actual event structure, prerequisites, registration, fees and result requirements.
The PDF currently retrieved from PSIA is labelled “Updated: September 2026” on its title page, despite its older URL. Check the document itself and the version specified for your assessment. PSIA also describes teaching-criteria refinements introduced for 2025–26.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf; Teaching Excellence Evolved: Why the 2025–26 Teaching Updates Matter to Every Instructor — thesnowpros.org, November 5, 2025
Practise learning about students and communicating clearly
The people-skills criteria include building relationships, identifying motivations and emotions, asking questions and using feedback appropriately.
Practise open questions about a student’s prior experience, goals and concerns. In a written scenario, use the information actually supplied; do not invent a movement, emotion or successful outcome to justify your feedback.
Ask a trainer to review whether your explanations and questions are clear and relevant to the student. Rehearsal can help your communication, while real teaching requires you to respond to what the student actually says and does.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf
Connect a lesson plan to the assessment criteria
The teaching framework covers assessing and planning, implementing, and reflecting and reviewing. Level I focuses on beginner and novice learners.
Prepare to explain how the student’s needs inform a learning outcome, how you would organise the learning environment, and how practice and feedback support that outcome. Managing physical and emotional risk is part of the teaching criteria.
Use PSIA’s teaching resources and qualified training for actual progressions and terrain decisions. The national assessment headings alone do not provide a universal first-lesson sequence or guarantee that a particular learner can stop safely on a chosen slope.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf; Teaching Excellence Evolved: Why the 2025–26 Teaching Updates Matter to Every Instructor — thesnowpros.org, November 5, 2025
Keep movement analysis within the Level I task
The Level I movement-analysis criteria ask you to describe relevant ski and body performance through one phase of a turn, explain their relationship and prescribe a change tied to one Technical Fundamental.
Review the Alpine Skiing Fundamentals and their performance indicators in the technical resources. In video or live practice, start with what you can observe, then explain your interpretation and obtain feedback from a qualified trainer.
Writing an analysis can improve clarity, but skiing demonstrations and live teaching also require on-snow practice. Use training appropriate to your ability, terrain and local procedures.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf
Understand what the six-point scale describes
The standards use a six-point scale for assessment criteria. The descriptions concern how consistently the essential elements appear, from absent to continuously demonstrated at a superior level.
Practice exercise
In this original reading exercise, an assessor records that a criterion’s essential elements appear regularly at a satisfactory level. Which number on the published six-point scale matches that description? Does that single observation establish an overall pass?
Show answer
The matching description is 4. One criterion’s observation alone does not establish the overall result.
The scale describes 4 as essential elements appearing regularly at a satisfactory level. You still need the other assessment evidence and the applicable result rules to establish the overall outcome.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf
Your Level I preparation checklist
Use the national standards together with the resources and event instructions applicable to your region.
- Confirm your event’s prerequisites, structure, dates, fees and result rules.
- Read the Level I sections of the current Alpine Certification Standards.
- Use the Alpine Technical Manual, Teaching Snowsports Manual and Performance Guides for the relevant detail.
- Practise describing observations and explaining your interpretation accurately.
- Rehearse student-centred questions, lesson planning and feedback.
- Arrange appropriate on-snow practice and feedback on skiing and teaching.
Official sources: PSIA Alpine Certification Standards, Levels 1–3 (updated September 2026) — thesnowpros.org, final URL PSIA_Alpine_Standards100225v5.pdf
Official sources
Facts checked against the September 2026 PSIA Alpine Certification Standards: