TradeSkills4U Feedback -

Dan

Please leave feedback if you've been on this course!

jivah

I have just finished a series of courses with Tradeskills4U and would like to post some feedback for others to get an idea of what they are like. First a little background, I have been working with computers for the last 12 years and have got to the point where I really need a change of scenery. It gets a bit much when all you do all day is stare at a screen so I wanted to do something that would get me out and about. Why electrics? I have been interested in renewable energy for a while and have been looking into fitting solar water panels on my own house, what I soon realised was if you want to do anything in this area, pretty soon you have to get involved with the electics, solar water needs pumps and controllers and they all have to be wired in. Once I started looking into it I decided that I would quite like to get the whole wiring side as it looked a lot more interesting than what I was doing at the moment.

So after a bit of reasearch I settled on doing a course with tradeskills4u, the main reason I went for them is that they were not too far away and I could do the course while still being able to get home in the evenings. So not very scientific, it was just a question of choosing the one that was nearest. I checked out a few other places and prices seem to vary but the length of the courses seems to be pretty similar, I also liked there site as there was more information on it than just about all the others. I could have gone for one of the courses run by a trade body like the NIC but I called them a couple of times and got conflicting information, where as tradeskills were much easier to deal with, I called them up and was asked questions about my background and they recomended a series of courses which I booked there and then.

One thing I should point out is that although my knowledge of domestic wiring is limited, before I drifted into computers I was a mechanical engineer working on the design and construction of large generators, so I have a pretty solid background in engineering, although all of it on the mechanical side, I am not the sort of person who has never picked up a screwdriver before.

I did the four day foundation, which was two days of practical wiring followed by two days of circuit testing. I then did my C&G 2382 17th edition, and my part p domestic installers course.

Overall impression of the course was very good, the quality of the teaching is very high especially as you have a very wide range of abilities. I would say that about 75% of those on the course had some previous experience in wiring, some were electricians who had been working in the trade for years but needed the qualifications, some were kitchen and bathroom fitters, some office site managers. Some were people like myself who have some practical knowledge but not in electrics, and some were complete novices who had never done anything like this before, although I would say that they were in the minority. Overall the spread of knowledge was quite wide but they managed to keep the whole thing moving a a good pace, quickly working out who was going to need more help and keeping a close eye on what was going on.

Beacause they were quite booked up I ended up dowing my 17th first then my part p, whereas it would have made more sense to do it the other way round. These two courses are craming exercises, what you learn on the 17th is how to find your way around the book and answer questions, it is all theory and dosen't feel like it has anything to do with wiring, we could have been studying hierogliphics. I am used to wading through computer manuals and using code that I don't understand and this was a similar exercise. I enjoyed the part p as it was a little more practical with a lot more real world examples of how the building regs apply to situations.

Overall impression of the course was very good, the quality of the teaching is very high and the lecturers teaching skills are excellent, we all learned a lot in a very short space of time. My only criticism, would be that I think there should be a more practical element to these courses. I would like to see the inspection and test expanded to say five days instead of two, with lots of testing on dodgy setups. But this is something that would need to be bought in as a compulsory element, trade skills I am sure have to compete on price against other similar courses and so if there prices are higher than others they would loose business. I think the best way to do this would be to make it a compulsory part of registering with NIC/Napit ect. that way all these centers would have to offer it as part of the package.

Overall then I would give Tradeskills a mark of 9/10, they run very good intensive courses, they are very pleasant to deal with and I think that the courses represent pretty good value for money and I only knock a point off because of the appaling quality of there coffee machine

If you are looking around at doing one of these courses, I hope that helps.

Cheers

Freedo

Excellent post there jivah! Much appreciated...

I was just about to ask if anyone had any feedback from Tradeskills. My sister also lives near them so Tradeskills is closest to me also.

Just out of interest what courses did you take? I know you did Part P and 17th edition - any others? Now that you have finshed the courses what do you want to do?

About myself, I have a very basic knowledge of domestic electrics and am hoping to work with my step dad to become an domestic electrician. The courses 'I think' which are best suited to me are as follows;

- Part P Domestic Installers course £785
- City & Guilds 2381 16th Edition £450
- 2 Day Foundation Electrical course £225

Thanks again,

Shakey

Freedo, you wont be doing the 16th edition 2381, i think the last exam has now gone. Its 2382-10 17th edition now

jivah

Hi Freedo,

Thats what I signed up to, althought I think you meant 17th edition rather than 16th, but after doing the 2 day foundation I realised that I should do the inspection and test as well. I think it is important to stress, what these courses do is give you the basics along with some pretty intensive cramming to get you through the tests. They probably all follow a similar way of doing things, I was just very impressed at the pace at which things are done, considering the broad range of abilities.

The thing is that when you come out of one of these courses, you are not really an electrician. Its a big step in that direction but what you really need is experience to go with the bits of paper.

Personally I would like to see a lot more emphasis on the testing, I think you learn more from problem solving and working it out for yourself than you do from reading a book. What I have done is to get round this is to buy myself some test gear and I have volunteered to check all my friends electrical systems, free of charge. They don't get any paperwork, but it gives me something to test myself on.

As for value for money, I look at it from an IT perspective, if I was to go on a course to learn some programming skills I would expect to pay about 200 to 300 a day to be taught in a group. Trade skills are coming in at about 125 a day so to me that seems pretty good.

I should point out that I can't compare it to other courses because this is the only one I have been on, you may well find that there are many others out there who went some where else who were just as pleased with what they learned, I can only tell you about this place, so have a good look around and just go with the place you feel comfortable with.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

jivah

Hi,

Sorry I am begining to sound like an advert which is not really what I meant to do, what I was trying to say was this was great for me but don't expect it to suit everyone.

I was looking at some of the other comments about another course and the guy was really disappointed, he felt like he had not learnt to be an electrician, that it was nearly all theory and not much practice and he got no help afterwards. But his course was probably very similar to mine and I think all these courses are going to be very similar. I was pleased with what I got because thats what I was expecting.

If you go on one of these short courses thinking you are going to learn to be an electrician in a few days then you are going to be dissapointed because you can't compress all that learning into a few days, it's just not possible.

These courses are good for people who are in the trade and need the qualifications, people who are in related trades who need to upgrade, and people like me who have experience in other areas which help me to understand what is being taught. It's important to stress, these courses will not turn you into an electrician


This is high speed learning with the emphasis on passing tests. If you are a complete novice and you want to become an electrician then you probably need to go to college. I was pleased with my course because from my point of view it gave me exactly what I wanted, I am sure there are plenty of people out there who have a completly different view and I think they should be up here posting there comments as well so we can get a balanced point of view.

Hope that makes sense!!

Cheers

Bane

Your posts jivah are very informative mate and I'm glad you've gone through the effort to put forth your opinion.

"These courses are good for people who are in the trade and need the qualifications, people who are in related trades who need to upgrade, and people like me who have experience in other areas which help me to understand what is being taught. It's important to stress, these courses will not turn you into an electrician"

I'd already decided to enrol at college (since landing a job as a labourer/mate) BUT I was considering one of these "Fast track" courses UNTIL I saw the costs plus with the fact I was never really convinced with how proficient you could become with this condensed learning and you jivah, have worded it very eloquently and to the point.

Thanks and hope we see more of you on here.

ccrowe

jivah, your experience mirrors mine almost exactly. IT background followed by the Part P and 2382 courses at TS4U. I agree completely with what you say about them. The lecturers are very good. The course content could've done with more inspection and testing but I guess they've got so much to cover in a finite number of days that it just isn't possible.

These courses do not teach you to be an electrician, OK a DEI if you're being picky, but they give you enough to pass the tests to go on and develop your skills. Surely some training is better than none, and the people on my courses were under no illusions about how competant they'd be at the end.

All in all I'd say that TS4U are excellent at training you to exactly the level they describe.

Finally, you're absolutely correct when you say their coffee machine, and in fact their entire non-workshop/classroom facilities, are utterly dreadful.

Carl Bennett

Thanks for your feedback on this forum of our training centre. As you know, we get instant end of course feedback from everyone who attends our courses, and we always react to fair constructive comments, its the only way companies like ours improve. Sorry that the coffee isn't up to your standards, hopefully the training and qualification success you have received made up for it !

hope to see you again.

Carl Bennett
Director
TS4U

IanB

Hi all

I have just completed the 13 day Domestic Installer course at TradeSkills4U and here is a writeup.

Some background: My day job is in IT and the business side of computers (i.e. not programming etc.). I am doing these courses for interest and I would also like to do some work around my house. Who knows, it may even grow from there but currently IT remains my main 5 days a week bread and butter. I am competent with normal wiring etc. (did a year as a mate a long time ago) but had no testing experience.

I chose TradeSkills4U mainly because of location (near my parents) and price. I signed up for the 13 day block which was 5 days foundation, 5 days Part P and 3 days 17th. I chose to do these consecutively. On arrival at the centre the first thing you notice is the almost complete lack of parking. Get in early enough and you get a space but after 8:30 or so everyone struggles. This varies with the number of courses on at one time as is to be expected. Signing in is very easy and then it is off to your classroom to meet your tutor and start. There were 13 in our foundation group with a wide range of experience and abilities. There was just as wide a range of reasons for doing the course too with some wanting to become apprentices through to those wanting to renovate houses. There were none who would admit to having seen adverts for job shortages and high wages and jumped in at the deep end.

Week 1 - Foundation
The course was essentially divided into two days building circuits and three days testing. Day 1 was theory on ring final circuits including spurs etc. and then building them. Day two was theory on lighting, one way, two way and intermediate switching and again building them. This was fun and circuits were proven by simply switching them on and seeing what happened. No student hands were near them at that time. There were some odd results but no bangs. At no point did we touch live circuits and the mains were safely padlocked off. Testing was done by the tutor.

The final 3 days were testing and the theory that goes with it. Some there had scrambled brains at the end of each day but the tutor did a grand job of making sure everyone had grasped it (or at least thought they had). This is where less people in the group would have been a big improvement for those there. I was the only one there to have brought a tester with me and I used it to get to know it which was very helpful. We all learnt a lot in this stage of the course.

Summary of week 1:
Pros: We learnt a lot in a reasonable amount of detail. Hands on testing was great and the tutorage very helpful.
Cons: Coffee was awful, room way too hot and no ventilation. Too many on the course not allowing the slowest to keep up. You couldn’t quite miss the fact that the tutor didn’t like the course and what some students expected from it. For others e.g. wannabe apprentices though no such problems. This did not affect the standard of teaching.
Missing bits: Some sort of practical exercise with known problems to diagnose.
This course is well worth doing if you have no testing experience.

Week 2 – Part P
This was classroom based for the first two and a half days and then there was a 1 and a bit day assessed testing practical. The last day consisted of a revision section and off to the exam.
The lecturing was excellent with all salient points covered. Basically listen and absorb everything said and you would be ok. The testing was next with about half the class out of their depth at this point. Those doing the two day foundation for example just did not have the preparation necessary. The lecturer gave them a half hour top up and I think most completed this section after that.
The revision bit was excellent and a very worthwhile part of the course. We had what seems to be the average number (2 to 4) of people who did not pass. They all said they were coming back to retake though. There were 14 on this course.

The final 3 days – 17th edition.
This was more of the same classroom work with the tutor going through the red book pointing out all the important bits at least from an exam point of view. We were left to mark up our own red books with highlighters and labels or whatever took your fancy. It was fast and furious but ok at the end of the day. When I left no-one had failed but I did not see everyone. I think there were 16 on this course but numbers were not an issue here.

So, what did I think of it all. Well, the courses did exactly what they promised and for me at least delivered. I was more aware of what I did not know at the end of it all which was great but I am also more confident with what I do know. I have done several small jobs now and am enjoying myself a lot. I have even been to a short circuit and near fire and corrected the problem safely. This was caused by a DIY bodge the likes of which I have never seen before – amazing and just goes to show this Part P stuff is not a complete pain in the butt. Finally I would have liked to see more testing on the course but these are short courses and very intense at that. I am also happy with the value for money aspect and hope to do some more e.g. 2391 etc. in the future. I suspect better coffee is probably and sadly a pipe dream.