Become a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor and further on your Gap Year and reap the benefits of a professional diver qualification that enhances CV, personal statements, UCAS credentials and allows you to fund your Gap Year by working in the dive industry. Apply for a Level 3 Vocational Certificate in England and Wales, and earn college credit in the United States of America.

What is a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI)

A PADI OWSI is the next step in professional diving after PADI Divemaster. OWSIs are PADI’s backbone of underwater teaching, with the training and expertise to teach from Open Water to Divemaster. The Instructor Development Course (IDC) is operated as a simulation of actual diver teaching. Candidates are provided with all materials required and study them in advance. Then other a period of 2 and half weeks they work with IDC staff instructors and our PADI Course Director to master effective ways of teaching, liability considerations and dive management.

In a series of underwater exercisises candidates will be given a real lesson to teach. Other candidates will be their students and have several commonly and uncommonly found assigned problems. All candidates will learn from their own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

How do I become a PADI Instructor

To become a PADI OWSI you must first be a qualified PADI Divemaster and have had at least 6 months between when you learnt to dive and when you start the IDC. By the end of your course you will need a minimum of 100 logged dives. At Dive The Gap we use a modular based structure with all students involved in classroom presentations, dive planning, lesson teaching (from initial briefing, through all the inwater skills and debriefing). Each lesson is divided into 5 areas which award points for control, informative, problem solving, contact etc… Each exercise is broken down into those areas which are marked individually.

At the end you are a full qualified PADI Instructor. We offer an extension course called Master Scuba Diver Trainer Prep. This provides you with 5 specialities that you can also teach. Once you certify 25 people you become a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer.

Additionally we have a Team Teaching module that can be bolted on to the programme. Over a period of 2 weeks in tandem with one of our instructors you teach courses to real students. You take the certifications as your own and one of our staff members aids you in finding your own unique way of teaching.