Older test names
You passed something years ago and the name has since gone. This page holds the older British test names and, where British Ice Skating has published a conversion, what the modern equivalent is.
Not checked yet. The names and dates on this page are a first draft by a non-expert, and no coach has seen them yet. Read them as a starting point and check them with a coach. Corrections are very welcome.
Four sets of names
The body renamed itself as well as its tests. The National Ice Skating Association began rebranding as British Ice Skating in November 2018, so NISA and BIS are the same organisation and an old NISA pass is a British Ice Skating pass.
The medal tests. Preliminary, Inter-Bronze, Bronze, Inter-Silver, Silver, Inter-Gold and Gold, with Gold Star above them for free skating only. A level was several separate tests: moves in the field, elements and free skating were taken independently and at different paces. So Inter-Silver names a rung on the ladder made of several passes, which matters below.
Levels 1 to 10. By July 2015 the singles test manual sets out ten numbered levels and makes no mention of the medal names. The field moves test at each of those levels is the one the Skills tests replaced, and it is what the handbook means by old field moves.
Interim field moves. A short-lived set that kept 1, 2 and 3 and then switched to the competition categories: BN, INT, Adv Nov, JNR, SNR. The handbook does not expand the abbreviations. Reading them as basic novice, intermediate novice, advanced novice, junior and senior matches the category ladder, but it is our reading. The handbook does not say so.
Skills 1 to 8. The current tests, and the ones this guide covers. British Ice Skating revised them on 01/10/2026, adding an exercise or two to most levels and altering five existing exercises.
What converts to what
One conversion is published, and it is the field moves one. The table in the National Skills Tests handbook awards a Skills pass for a field moves pass and names the test to take next.
| Old field moves | Interim field moves | Skills awarded | Next Skills test |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| 4 | BN | 5 | 6 |
| 5 | BN | 5 | 6 |
| 6 | INT | 6 | 7 |
| 7 | INT | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | Adv Nov | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | JNR | 8 | — |
| 10 | SNR | 8 | — |
Ten rungs become eight, so the mapping is not one to one and the compression is all at the top. Levels 4 and 5 both award Skills 5, 6 and 7 both award Skills 6, and 9 and 10 both award Skills 8 with nothing left to take. Nobody arrives at Skills 4 by conversion at all: it is a test you have to take.
The medal tests do not convert
There is no published mapping from Inter-Bronze or Inter-Silver onto a numbered level, and none onto Skills. Two renamings sit in between, and a medal level was a set of tests, so there is no one number for it to become. Anyone who offers you an exact equivalence is guessing, and this guide will not add to the guessing.
The answerable version of the question is what you can hold now. Skills asks for specific exercises at each level, so the way in is to read the level pages and find where you stop. What credit an older pass carries is a question for your coach and the BIS office, and the table above is the whole of what BIS publishes about it.
One trap worth naming: bronze, silver and gold appear twice in British skating. The Skate UK awards use the same three words at a far earlier stage, so a Skate UK gold badge and an old Gold medal test are not the same thing, and are nowhere near the same standard.
Ice dance changed separately
Dance moved to a new test structure on 01/09/2025 with its own chart for carrying existing awards across and a transition period running to April 2026. That chart is published as an image in BIS's announcement, so it is not reproduced or paraphrased here. Read it there.
Where this comes from
- The numbered levels: the NISA singles test manual of July 2015.
- The medal test names: legacy NISA material still circulating on club sites. No current BIS document lists them, which is the main reason this page is marked unverified.
- Ice dance: British Ice Skating's new ice dance test structure announcement.