As far as I am aware, it depends on what you are teaching. Its been a few year so may have changed.

Are you teaching structured, accredited courses which would result in a nationally recognised qualification? Where you have to regiseter with an accredited body like Btec or City & Guilds, etc. In which case your qualifications would be a pre-requisite of you being accredited by them to teach  the course and they would clearly define the qualifications and experience you would need - so refer to your relevant awarding body

If you are simply in-house teaching course content of your own design, then I don't think there is any specific legislation, but competent is the by-word here. So it would certainly help if you did a 'train the trainer' course or PTLLS replacement: Education and Training 6502 (city & guilds)

Any qualification on the QCF framework including those regulated by OFQUAL and the SQA etc will almost certainly require the trainer to have the appropriate teaching/assessing qualification as well as being suitably qualified in the subject that they are teaching. 

Some of the changes that you may be referring to could be the changes in first aid teaching, where trainers are required to be qualified.

I teach a number of regulated/accredited first aid and health and safety qualifications and it is a pre requesite that I have a teaching qualification. The norm is the 'level 3 award in training and education' which is the replacement of the old 'preparing to teach in the lifelong learning sector' PTLLS qualification.

Slightly off topic but below is the HSE guidance on what is required to teach and assess first aid, still very relevant i feel and serves as a good guide. 

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/geis3.pdf

I am not aware of specific legislation on a teaching or training  qualification but I would strongly recommend getting properly trained in how to train/present.   I have a background in Education/training as well as H&S and over the years I have seen some terrible training.  There is often a general assumption that if you are a subject matter expert then you can impart that knowledge to others, this is not the case.  Thre worst example I saw was a  Global HSEQ Manager presenting to an audience on the companys HSEQ policies and procedures.  He looked at,  and read the death by powerpoing text only slides in a monotone voice for about 20 minutes.  I lost the will to live after about five minutes as did the entire room, three of whom were nodding off, it was dreadful.  So no information was retained due to the terrible way it was presented.  I have also seen a couple of people who (in my opinion) will never be an effective trainer with all the training in the world.  Just as I will never be a good singer with all the training in the world.  So it is really important to recognise that an ability to teach/train/present is just as important, maybe more important than having subject knowledge.  I have trained in areas where my subject knowledge or experience is not great, but being able to facilitate discussion, keep learners involved and engaged and bring out the knowledge and experience of those in the room is so important and often overlooked.   That is one thing I really like about IOSH Managing/Working safely, it is designed to be involving and engaging throughout and the course is broken up into sections with lots of groupwork and learner participation.  

I Agree with all you say A Kurdziel, some people are naturally talented trainers and I too have seen brilliant trainers who have received no training in training.  But I do think it is a bit of an art and a good number of people are just not suited to being a trainer.  If you look at many H&S job descriptions there is a requirement to deliver training and I think this aspect of the job is taken too lightly and almost taken for granted.   This is why, particularly in the H&S field, you see training delivered badly because the trainer is a H&S professional and not a teacher/trainer and this has never really been probed or tested during recruitment. 

Originally Posted by: Brian Hagyard

Agree totally with rileym and A Kurdziel, have sat through some mind numbing training given by very qualified trainers and some fantastic training from people with no formal training qualifications. But then the same can be said about anything - simply having a bit of paper is no guarantee of competence (I know I have plenty myself!). I'm told I am an OK trainer and have had some good reactions to my stuff over the years. What I would say about any of the training course's is they can make most trainers better, they will give you good tips and advice on techniques etc which will help. My formal training was a good number of years ago now, and was while learning to be a SCUBA instructor, but good technique is much the same in any subject.

I agree, but would like to add:  A qualification is proof that you have acheived criteria under test conditions. There are plenty out there that have passed their driving tests but don't drive properly. And I'm sure those who can drive perfectly well without having passed a test.

The structure of a teaching qualification is intended to help you with content, structure and evaluation, which will aid your teaching. However, it is possible to write perfectly good lesson plans and follow good course structure but be bad at teaching as much as it is possible to be really good at teaching without having learned all of the above.

However, there is no reason why a good teacher should not still benefit from training. If only so they can become qualified to be able to train other teachers in the future and apss on their knowledge and experience.

I attended the L3 award in Education & Training last year and agree with Hilary it was a really useful course. If you want to learn more about identifying training needs, lesson planning, inclusive teaching and so much more this is a worth while coursre. 

Edited by user 29 November 2016 14:26:56(UTC)  | Reason: spelling