Hi everyone hope your all well. I'm a postman at the mo living in newport south wales and really want to start my own business as a tiler.
could any one tell me anything about assess training wales, i gave them a ring to ask some questions about the tiling course and what qualifications you get and he told me there are no qualifications in tiling no nvq and no city guilds but i know there definatly is as have been on the websites for city and guilds and nvq's.why would he say this when there centre is a city and guilds approved centre they do it all.there website says they only do a 2 week course but they're changing the website now as its out of date and they do do the 4 week course but still not even a city and guilds course and they charge £ 2400 for the course when all others in england are between 1500 and £2000.
anyone know any other training centre in wales as cant really afford to pay accomadation 4 4week staying away.
thanks very much for reading
Andy.

hi there buddy,my old man comes from Bridgend so i know where you are located in Wales been through Newport quite a lot during my life lol,long Friday nights travelling down for the weekend.

Anyway,thats crazy money for a tiling course m8,so can i recommend NORTH EAST TILING TRAINING in SOUTH SHIELDS near Newcastle.The course costs 450 plus 150 for the Natural stone course.The course is a week long mon-fri and is well worth the money.Even travelling up and staying for the week will be cheaper than any courses down your way and you are guaranteed good training,have a look at the courses at the top of the page.If you want to ask any questions about the course or accomodation etc ,pm me and i will try to help you out.(great course m8)

We also have course sponsors who do the nvq,s you are after....


http://www.chasetiling.co.uk/

hi cheers for that but i really wanna do a 4 week course and get the city and guilds. thanks anyway.

Originally Posted by tile

hi cheers for that but i really wanna do a 4 week course and get the city and guilds. thanks anyway.

ok m8 no worries,do as Dave says and check out the courses that are also of a good repute,i have obviously completed the NETT and was talking from my experience on the course,good luck then m8.

Welcome to the forums Andy......Gaz

cheers gaz

Andy, i did 5 days tiling at access training in cardiff as part of a 'handyman' course 2 years ago when considering leaving the army. obviously things may have changed since then however at the time the tiling 'instructor' was a bricky by trade. Limited training bays and facilities, unless you get a chance to visit first i would steer well clear. Simon.

thanks for telling me that i wont go now they dont sound good atall.

Hi there tile m8,if you definately want to do a 4 week course then i know a friend who did the DIAMOND TRAINING COURSE and loved it.I have spoke with Kenny the guy who runs the course in the tilechat and he seems a good guy ,so maybe check them out bud.LOTS of good feedback on the course at the top of the page and there website is ace so have a look at that too, Bri

thanks bri

Originally Posted by tile

hi cheers for that but i really wanna do a 4 week course and get the city and guilds. thanks anyway.

Hi Andy,

Give us a call at the centre and I will clear any myths you have been told by other centres, so that you are clear as to which way you go.

What ever you do though DO NOT GO FOR THAT CENTRE YOU MENTIONED saying that there is no NVQ's etc in tiling. They clearly don't know what they are talking about.

Regards
Anthony
Chase Tiling Academy

I may well of been that bricky that showed you some tiling Simon? But I think I finished to start my Contracts Managers job building retail stores before then.

I’ve been in construction from an age of 15, and have C&G old skool Advanced Craft in Brickwork and I’m not bad at a few other trades ie Plumbing, Electrics etc (I’m a shocking chippy though lol). I currently build large retail stores around the UK ie Tesco, Asda, M&S, Morrison etc. I have a team of 40+ tradesmen and we complete many elements of these projects ie the work spans many trades. Just to make things crystal clear for everyone Access Training Wales, despite having many fun times their with the trainees & staff, it is probably one of the worse training centres I have ever seen and every instructor that started there (during my time) has since quit!

Talk about wing and a prayer! It wasn’t great to teach there because the facilities were shocking and the level of instruction for the money paid was terrible. They started by taking in kids that had been kicked out of school and then eventually started mixing those with well respected Army personnel. It was terrible, safety also was non existent and the last straw for me was when the managers tried to force me to teach brickwork to 12 – 13yrs olds with no safety equipment – girls wanting to lay bricks in flip flops!

I only ever started training to give something back, but during my time in training and seeing other training schools as well as the rape of the apprenticeship system and NVQ nonsense instead of real basic and advanced craft, I realised everything had gone corrupt and it was all about money. It’s a bit like the banking ads with the fat man, offer everything, snag them, take the coin and then teach them sod all. Unfortunately, when your pushing for better and the management claim that as the money comes in then we’ll have better facilities you tend to stick with it, but all that really happened is you got used to poorer and poorer conditions.

I taught some good guys there and hopefully it gave them enough knowledge to get on site with someone who knows what they are doing and can survive and begin learning for real – ie a head start – My goal was always to provide them with enough skill to not get sacked by 10am and to hold down their job and develop. Based on the facilities, lack of materials, corrupt management etc there was nothing else you could give the trainee.

At best, you may learn to plaster at this place, and lay a few bricks but for the rest it’s a total farce and nothing but a rip off. Probably the worst one out of all of them is the tiling because the materials cost is higher for the training provider. You will learn nothing about tiling onto different surfaces, different adhesives and their purposes, complex cutting, burying pipe work correctly, laying different thickness tiles on the same wall ie mosaic patterns in a panel, you’ll be basically tiling about 2m square if your lucky around a sink – nothing you could not learn or do at home and a sheet of plywood!

With all sincerity, I would avoid this place like the plague, and if you wish to get onsite and make a career out of it, forget training centres and take a job and work for free if necessary with a professional tiler, get yourself to college! If you must use a training centre, then it is essential that you visit the premise, find out exactly where you will be working, and ask to be able to call down for half a day to watch people work. Pay with a credit card if possible and get a full prospectus of what you will be taught, then if your not taught that issue a charge back on the credit card and get a refund. Training in the UK has gone to the dogs – full stop, shop around and don’t get stung!

Hi Andy, I live in North Wales and made the trip to do the course with North East Tile Training and would be happy too recommend it to you even the 5 hour drive was worth it mate and a damn site cheaper than you have been quote for that course shop around mate

Originally Posted by MrE

I may well of been that bricky that showed you some tiling Simon? But I think I finished to start my Contracts Managers job building retail stores before then.

I’ve been in construction from an age of 15, and have C&G old skool Advanced Craft in Brickwork and I’m not bad at a few other trades ie Plumbing, Electrics etc (I’m a shocking chippy though lol). I currently build large retail stores around the UK ie Tesco, Asda, M&S, Morrison etc. I have a team of 40+ tradesmen and we complete many elements of these projects ie the work spans many trades. Just to make things crystal clear for everyone Access Training Wales, despite having many fun times their with the trainees & staff, it is probably one of the worse training centres I have ever seen and every instructor that started there (during my time) has since quit!

Talk about wing and a prayer! It wasn’t great to teach there because the facilities were shocking and the level of instruction for the money paid was terrible. They started by taking in kids that had been kicked out of school and then eventually started mixing those with well respected Army personnel. It was terrible, safety also was non existent and the last straw for me was when the managers tried to force me to teach brickwork to 12 – 13yrs olds with no safety equipment – girls wanting to lay bricks in flip flops!

I only ever started training to give something back, but during my time in training and seeing other training schools as well as the rape of the apprenticeship system and NVQ nonsense instead of real basic and advanced craft, I realised everything had gone corrupt and it was all about money. It’s a bit like the banking ads with the fat man, offer everything, snag them, take the coin and then teach them sod all. Unfortunately, when your pushing for better and the management claim that as the money comes in then we’ll have better facilities you tend to stick with it, but all that really happened is you got used to poorer and poorer conditions.

I taught some good guys there and hopefully it gave them enough knowledge to get on site with someone who knows what they are doing and can survive and begin learning for real – ie a head start – My goal was always to provide them with enough skill to not get sacked by 10am and to hold down their job and develop. Based on the facilities, lack of materials, corrupt management etc there was nothing else you could give the trainee.

At best, you may learn to plaster at this place, and lay a few bricks but for the rest it’s a total farce and nothing but a rip off. Probably the worst one out of all of them is the tiling because the materials cost is higher for the training provider. You will learn nothing about tiling onto different surfaces, different adhesives and their purposes, complex cutting, burying pipe work correctly, laying different thickness tiles on the same wall ie mosaic patterns in a panel, you’ll be basically tiling about 2m square if your lucky around a sink – nothing you could not learn or do at home and a sheet of plywood!

With all sincerity, I would avoid this place like the plague, and if you wish to get onsite and make a career out of it, forget training centres and take a job and work for free if necessary with a professional tiler, get yourself to college! If you must use a training centre, then it is essential that you visit the premise, find out exactly where you will be working, and ask to be able to call down for half a day to watch people work. Pay with a credit card if possible and get a full prospectus of what you will be taught, then if your not taught that issue a charge back on the credit card and get a refund. Training in the UK has gone to the dogs – full stop, shop around and don’t get stung!

Still work for Access now mate?

No Dan, I more or less helped start the company up along with 4 other Assessors, 3 of whom worked for a training company in Caerphilly. Everyone was expecting to build something brilliant that resemebled the level of training in the 80's with the old C&G. I took the job just after my MSc. We got the place up to shape, but it never developed from there, I took it as far as I could go, but when I realised nothing was going to improve, both myself, the sec, the plumber, carpenter and the P&D all quit. The plasterer stayed, becasue he was too old to get something else, but now he works for a different training company. I'd not work for them again, I have been asked by one or two other training companys to teach again, but to be honest I'm really enjoying my new job and been at it 4 yrs now and loving it :-) Perhaps things have changed a bit at Access, the plasterer who stayed said it was worse than ever, but he's gone now - I know that by the end I was glad to be from there, the only good thing is that many of the kids I trained in brickwork, turned out pretty good. I gave a few of them work on site paying £500 a week, which totally changed their lives.

What other training courses are in Wales then mate? What did the one in Caerphilly do?

And would you teach again do you think if you didn't love your job as much as you do?

Teach again, defo. It’s a great buzz and knowing how poor the industry is then I think its important that top tradesmen pass the skills on, after all that was what people done for us when we started. I’m hoping to retire at around 45, 38 at the mo. But I know I’ll want to do something part time, and teaching probably would be it. Be it in Uni, College or a Centre. I’ve been told on many occasions by a whole range of people that I’m very good at teaching, bottom line is if my lads can do it onsite to a high standard then I’ve done my job, after all its only all about giving people all the info and helping them stay focused while they practice non stop – motivation is everything.

As for training in Wales, I’ll be honest from what I have seen of the training centres I’m not impressed at all, but that is only my limited experience of them, even though I only did a few years, my mates had been teaching for most of their lives 35yrs is some cases, so I tend to listen to those guys too and how they believed times were changing. Cearphilly was not that different from Access to be honest. Better, but still with a poor attitude and again mainly took troubled kids 14 and up who are on the verge of being kicked out of school, or have been or are on tag etc. Which again is fine, I personally like working with those, but you cant mix adults with them etc.

As for Training in South Wales, the best place to train is Ystrad Mynach College by far! Then Merthyr College, Pontypridd College is not so good but better than most training Centres, Carillion are ok too. I’m not too sure about Barry College, not been there but was offered a job teaching brickwork there. But I’m not sure about tiling, will ask some of our hot tillers. Also the trouble with training is people simply don’t realise it takes 2-3 years to become excellent and even then your always learning, not 2-3 weeks and your done. But that said you can streamline training and get them up to speed with the basics and give enough knowledge for people to learn onsite as they go – not my favoured method mind you, but a method nonetheless.

The fact of the matter is that certain trades lend themselves to speed learning ie Plastering, Tiling, Plumbing and Electrics, they are all easy. Now I use that word carefully, what I mean is you can learn in a short time to get an acceptable even excellent finish to ‘basic general work’ but its not the trade, in fact its bloody far from it, but you can survive. Home electrics and Plumbing are painfully easy, Tiling a bathroom at home can be a touch more tricky but still based on the materials normally chosen for a home again it’s easy. Plastering again when you can get the finish its easy. But those of us in the trade can list countless examples of where its not easy, in fact the job at hand will require exceptional skill level gained from years of training and experience.

Now take anyone of those trades and take them into the commercial arena, and then you will see why we have Advance Craft levels in those subjects, it really is a case of chaulk and cheese. The home can be challenging for a person with little training, but commercial large scale operations will ‘almost’ be impossible for that same person, not to mention dangerous.

The trouble is, everyone is only training for the home / jobbing builder. Even the CITB to my eyes have gone to the dogs. The one good thing about recession is that training tends to improve, so hopefully we will see a return to high level long coursed skill based training that is tied to a wealth of theory, instead of these MaC-Courses. Now if that should happen I’d love to be involved in teaching then :-) Because I don’t know about you, but I love nothing more than seeing a full on tradesman nail a unique or difficult job and you stand back at it and go ‘ Yea’ it’s why I started at 15 and keeps me going today. What about you Bud, what’s your take on the training today?

Spot on for your lengthy post mate. Thank you.

It's clearly something close to your heart.

Do you think, as an older adult, needing to get into a trade, having some handy skills maybe diy or whatever, a short course can give 'you' the step you need to get into a trade though?

Even after college they've not shown you how to run your new skills as a business I feel. Plus, the materials available at colleges, and the time it takes to cover a course, can be silly really. Not practical at all for the average situation with the current rate of career path changes.

Your right, defo a short course and DIY can get you into a trade and I think they certainly got their place. I mean lets take tiling, it would be better for say general construction for you to have good tiling skills, basic carpentary, basic plastering, basic plumbing and part p electric then you can take the whole package when pricing jobs and dont have to sub out the work jsut wire up a shower or dismantle and re-plumb a suite, or board / repair walls.

Plus yep college is not up to pace with fast track learning that is suitable for bright adults. Plus its harder to get work placements now too, which are essential to college work. At Ystrad we did have lessons on tax and setting up a business but that was only becasue the lecturers took it on themselves to teach us that. It should be part of the course I think, and its not difficult, but again after someone has taken you through it :-)

But lets say I wanted to be a spark or plumber / pipe fitter and earn a regular wage from onsite - then I'd be looking at 2yrs and would want an NVQ2 ie basic craft - within that I'd want 1yrs onsite experience. Thats the level of course I'd be looking at and not say a 10 week crash course. But all courses have their place, and I defo agree with College being too slow a process for adults - fine for when your 16 - 19 but not so good for say 40 - 43! After 21 we all just want to get on with things and I reckon you could get to NVQ3 in two years and NVQ2 in 1, which for NVQ 1 would only be say 13 weeks training, 13 onsite, 10 weeks training. So not a lot different to what people are already doing ie short course, have a go, short course. But I get what your saying, and I defo agree

I think there is room for them all in this current market, and we need them all to differenciate between all the types of jobs available and skill-types needed.

I bet if you had a tiler, sparky, whatever that did a short course and then 1 years experience he'd get on your site as easy as a guy that's done 3 years in college and 1 years experience. And that's really what I think the guys are trying to acheive, a bit of a jump to get the experience which is what they really know is the valuable thing in the real world.

Bloody good chat though mate. Thanks for that and stick around.

No worries :-) Pah back to work tomorrow, called back early, week off well almost. Same here good chat, and great site bud, some brilliant info here, and when we are stuck for tilers, usually when over the bridge working, I can log on here from my lappy and hopefully snag someone localish to do the job and pull us out of the doo doo :-) Awesome site!

Some great writing MrE

I done a plumbing course at access training in Cardiff a couple of years ago and can honestly say it was the worst mistake i've made.They made out you would be qualified and they would help you with getting work at the end of the course.After complaining about this at the end they just dismisssed me and made up excuses like it was made clear to me what I'd gain at the end.I would stay way clear of them as they are just out to rip people off.
I wish I'd done my homework on them before going ahead with the course as its cost me a lot of money and I realise now what knowledge I gained there I could off gained from a DIY book for nothing.The course I done cost £4200 and I know other people who done this course feel the same about them.I really don't know how centres like these get away with ripping people of like this.