The safety module
The DSC1 safety assessment is a walk of the Berkenhorst premises with an accredited witness, answering 10 questions selected on the day from a set of 24 questions issued to you in advance. Every selected question must be answered to the stated standard. No faults are permitted: you are deemed safe or unsafe.
The questions themselves are Deer Management Qualifications material and are not reproduced here. You receive the complete set with your joining instructions, well before the assessment day, so nothing in this module is a surprise. What follows is what the questions are about.
What the module covers
The subject areas are the practical business of handling a rifle around other people, and they are the same ones a landowner cares about when deciding whether to let you on the ground.
- Handing a rifle over, and receiving one. Muzzle awareness, opening the bolt, checking chamber and magazine, and getting confirmation before it changes hands.
- Carrying, stalking alone. Whether the rifle is loaded, where the muzzle is pointing, the safety catch, and the state of your sling and swivels.
- Stalking in company. Who leads, who carries the loaded rifle, how boundaries are agreed when a party splits, how you communicate, where you meet, and what happens if the weather closes in.
- Crossing obstacles. Fences, gates and ditches, and what the rifle is doing while you deal with them.
- Getting into position. Crawling, mounting and leaving a high seat, and guarding against an obstructed barrel or an accidental discharge.
- Knives. How the risks around a sharp blade and a warm carcase are minimised.
- Off the hill. What you do with rifle and ammunition when the stalk ends and you go into a restaurant, a hotel or a vehicle.
- Judging a safe shot. The backstop, where everyone else is, and what makes a shot you should decline.
The deer decoys
Life-size deer figures are placed around the Berkenhorst premises. You are asked which of them may safely be shot and which may not, and for the reason in each case.
Candidates often start by looking at the animal. The answer is almost never about the animal. It is about what is behind it and who else is on the ground — a deer on a skyline has no backstop, and declining that shot earns you the mark rather than costing it.
How it is marked
Each question carries its own standard, and most require you to demonstrate or state several points rather than one. The assessor is watching what you do as much as listening to what you say: a question about handing over a rifle is answered with the rifle in your hands.
There is no partial credit across the module. Every selected question has to be answered correctly to its standard. That sounds harsh and is not, because you have the whole set beforehand — the module is the one part of DSC1 you can prepare for completely.
Preparing
- Read the set you are sent. All of it, not the ones you find interesting.
- Practise the physical answers with an unloaded rifle at home. Handing over, crossing a fence, mounting a seat. Knowing the answer and performing it under assessment are different skills.
- Learn the answers as lists. Most standards ask for a stated number of points, and a fluent paragraph that misses one still misses one.
- Bring the questions with you. The evening before the assessment is the right time to raise anything you are unsure of.
Last reviewed .